


As We Dream By The Fire

by wildaloofrebel



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:06:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 26,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21634852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildaloofrebel/pseuds/wildaloofrebel
Summary: A little holiday drabble for each of David and Patrick's days in December.I'm planning on writing something everyday until Christmas ... and I'm hoping that now I've wrote this here, I'll actually do it.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 131
Kudos: 309





	1. First of December

Light flurries of snow were beginning to cover Schitt’s Creek, blanketing the whole town in light and seeping into David’s sneakers. He had always thought that snow was nice, beautiful even, if you could watch it from a cosy apartment, with lots of blankets and ample hot chocolate. And probably Baileys. But now he was stomping through the snow, his feet wet, his hands freezing, his nose probably aglow, towards the haven of the store, and he was so glad that he had let Patrick convince him to get Ronnie to fix the heating before winter. And that Sunday’s were half days. As he wiped his feet on the welcome mat, he saw Patrick talking to a customer through the window, and instantly felt warmer.

That feeling quickly passed as he opened the door and something immediately felt off.

“Thank you, have a good day,” Patrick waved politely as the customer swept up their tote bag and made their way out of the store. David smiled as they left and after the bell dinged and the door closed, he turned to his fiancée. “Good morning, love.”

“What’s this?” he waved his hand in the air as he spoke, gesturing vaguely with the hope that Patrick would understand.

“What’s what?” Patrick asked innocently, the quirk of his lip the only thing giving him away.

“What’s that coming out of speakers?”

“That’s called music, David,” he rested his forearms on the counter and leaned towards David, a teasing smile now broad across his face.

“Hmm, yes. Yes, it is,” he nodded quickly. “Why is it playing here?”

“Because it’s Christmas -”

“December 1st.”

“And because people seem to like it.”

“Hmm, but are we sure that the type of people who enjoy being bombarded with jingle bells and lyrics about reindeer and whatnot are the kind of people we want in our store?”

“I like it.”

“Exactly.”

“David,” Patrick sighed. He was smiling and David hated him just a tiny bit.

“Fine, fine,” he held his hands up and plastered on a fake smile. “If you think this is necessary, I can compromise.”

“You’re so brave.”

“I know,” as he spoke, the bell dinged above the door, and he kept his fake smile on as he turned, “welcome to Rose – Oh, Roland.”

“Hey, Dave, Pat. Love the music,” he smirked. “Reminds me of the time Joc and I –“

“I will let you have a jar of the cinnamon applesauce for free if you don’t finish that sentence.”

“Just what I came in for,” he chuckled, lumbering over to the back of the store.

“So,” David sighed, rounding the counter and winding his arms around Patrick’s neck.

“I know, I need to get rid of the music.”


	2. Second of December

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It wouldn't be a Christmas fic without getting snowed in, would it?
> 
> Honestly this chapter kind of got away from me.

Sometime around midnight, the swirling snow turned into a blizzard, and the cold turned freezing. When Patrick had begrudgingly admitted that the store probably wouldn’t open that day, David had feigned disappointment, which would have been more impactful had he not been pulling the blankets over his head as he spoke.

Patrick had been annoyed at first, but it’s hard to stay mad when a sleepy David Rose pulls you back into bed and curls up on your chest.

“Can we stay here all day?” he asked, curling closer into Patrick’s side.

“I don’t think we have much choice.”

“No, but right here,” he said, squeezing Patrick to help make his point.

“Yeah, sounds good.”

“Good,” David said softly. He was quiet for a moment, and Patrick was sure he had drifted back to sleep until he murmured, “been a long time since we spent all day in bed.”

“Hmm, maybe back at Ray’s,” he said. “I’ve missed it.”

“Me too.”

“Although,” he began, his fingers finding their way slowly up the back of David’s sleep sweater, scratching the way David likes. “I don’t think I quite remember what we did to keep ourselves busy all day,” he dug his fingers in a little harder and felt David’s answering grin against his chest.

“No?” David asked, propping himself up on his elbow. “I’m sure I could remind you.”

“That’s very generous of you.”

“That’s just who I am,” he nosed at Patrick’s jaw, grinning and far too pleased with himself, which Patrick couldn’t allow. Obviously.

He pushed David onto his back and the cold stopped bothering them.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Do you want the chocolate or the blueberry?” Patrick asked later. “Chocolate, obviously. I don’t know why I asked.”

He had barely settled back into bed before David was snatching the chocolate muffin from his grasp. They ate in silence for a while, mostly because if David had to choose between eating and talking, Patrick knew he wouldn’t stand a chance.

“Unless you want the chocolate,” David said around a mouthful, offering up the mostly eaten muffin.

“I’m good.”

“Okay, good,” he opened his mouth wide after he spoke, shoving the rest of the muffin into his mouth and moaning. When he noticed Patrick watching him, he frowned, “what?”

“You’re so sexy,” he teased, rubbing a smear of chocolate off David’s chin with his thumb.

“I know, you’re very lucky.”

“I am,” he agreed, shaking his head when David licked the chocolate off his thumb. “And you always eat like it’s going to be your last meal, it’s cute.”

“This could very well be my last meal, we don’t know when we’ll get out of here, I have to make the most of it.”

“Speaking of,” Patrick said, leaning over and placing their empty plates on the nightstand. “If we are snowed in here forever, maybe we should think about sharing body heat soon.”

“Oh,” David breathed, and happily let Patrick climb into his lap. “Do we not need to wait twenty minutes after eating?”

“That’s swimming.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“I’m bored.”

“We can’t have sex again. Yet.”

“Why?”

“Because of my poor back, Patrick.”

They eventually managed to force themselves to leave their bed, relocating to the couch under a pile of blankets with David’s legs over Patrick’s lap. The TV quietly played in the background as they spoke; David had wanted to watch Mickey Blue Eyes and Patrick had wanted to watch Elf, which was so far from correct David couldn’t even explain it, so they had compromised and settled on Love Actually. Which, as it turned out, Patrick hated. He had lasted maybe an hour before he started to nudge David with his elbow, as he did when he felt like being particularly annoying.

“Stop it,” David hissed, grabbing the offending limb and holding it in his lap.

“Do we have any more of that cider Brett sent over?”

“Handsome Brett?”

“I mean, he’s fine.”

“No, he has that body from picking apples all day, or whatever. He’s Handsome Brett.”

“Fine, he’s handsome. Do we have any more cider?”

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As it happened, there was more cider, and David watched as Patrick turned into a red-faced, smiley, cartoon as he drained the first two bottles.

“Why are you staring at me?” he asked, frowning deeply.

“Because you look like a Frosty the Snowman impersonator whenever you drink.”

“Not nice,” he whispered. He raised his empty bottle to his lips before whining loudly when he found it rid of any cider. “Only one left.”

“Maybe you should pace yourself then.”

“Maybe we should call Hanson – hands- han – hard to say,” he shook his head, as if he could shake the booze out of him if he tried hard enough. “Maybe we should call Brett over to bring more.”

“You want to invite Handsome Brett over?” David asked. “Maybe he’ll decide to stay and keep me warm.”

“No, no. Let’s not invite him,” he sighed. He pressed a wet kiss to David’s cheek and said, “you should drink too, baby, it’s fun.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Do you think Hugh Grant is hot?”

“No,” David said. “Overrated.”

“Really?” Patrick raised his eyebrows. “Wow.”

“Do you?”

“I like his … hair,” he said, bringing his hand up to run his fingers through David’s hair.

After not a lot of convincing, David had found the bottle of wine he had hidden in the back of one of the kitchen cupboards. When they finished that, they found the vodka Stevie had left after a games night, and then they were on the floor; Patrick had his legs crossed and David was almost in his lap, his legs stretched out over Patrick’s thighs, their faces almost touching.

“You know who I'm currently into? Jason Momoa.”

“Khal Drogo?” Patrick gasped. He rested his head on his shoulder and smiled stupidly at David, “Moon of my life.”

“Me or him?”

“You,” he kissed David’s nose and grinned again. “I think my first crush was Colin Firth, is that a good choice?”

“That’s a very good choice.”

“My Mom used to love Pride and Prejudice when I was a kid and I liked him. A lot.”

“Very, very good choice,” he said. “I think Posh Spice was one of my firsts.”

“Yeah, I see that. That’s basically who you’ve turned into.”

“That’s so,” he started shaking his head, but really couldn’t think of a good argument. “True.”

“Which one am I?”

“You’re Ginger Spice.”

“I’m not ginger.”

“There’s a tint,” he said, looking up at Patrick’s hair intently. “And Stevie is Scary,” he struggled over the S’s, his words beginning to slur together, but powered on, “Alexis is Baby. And Ted is Sporty.”

“We should start a band,” Patrick said seriously, his hands gripping David’s wrists tightly. “But I want to be Sporty, Ted can be the other one.”

“Vet Spice.”

“Yeah, there was definitely a Vet Spice,” he laughed, face pink and lovely.

“Do you still think Ted is handsome?” David teased.

“No,” Patrick tipped his head back and smiled.

“You don’t?”

“No,” he was flushing deeper and giggling quietly, and could not be more clearly lying if he tried. “But.”

“But?”

“But if everyone else on Earth except Ted and I died, and I had spent a respectable amount of time grieving for you, I probably wouldn’t say no,” he bit his lip and stared off into space glassy-eyed. “If we had to repopulate the Earth or something.”

“Oh, if you had to, got it.”

“Last resort.”

“Do you spend a lot of time thinking about that?”

“No? No.”

“Okay,” David sighed, shoved at Patrick’s chest when he started laughing again, pushing him over with the force of it. “Well, when I eventually run away with Brett to have beautiful, possibly Spanish babies and make cider for the rest of my life, you’re welcome to him.”

“No. Mean. That’s mean, you’re a mean drunk,” he grabbed at David’s shoulders clumsily until he took the hint and let himself be pulled on top of his fiancé.

“Do you think Stevie is handsome?” David asked.

“Stevie … Nicks?”

“Who?”

“From Fleetwood Mac.”

“No, she’s not from Fleetwood Mac, she’s from Schitt’s Creek.”

“Oh, that Stevie,” Patrick nodded deeply. “She’s so handsome.”

“She so is.”

“She’s beautiful. We should tell her.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you have her number? My phone is all the way in the bedroom.”

“We can’t call her now; she’ll tell my Dad we’re drunk, and he’ll be mad.”

“Oh, right,” he nodded again, face so serious and so cute. “Your Dad’s handsome.”

“Ew.”


	3. Third of December

It had managed to stop snowing for all of four hours, leaving behind mountains on every sidewalk and freshly ploughed icy roads. It was astonishingly quiet, and the town managed to look almost beautiful under the cloak of winter, peaceful in a way that usually alluded it. David had made an argument for another day of drinking and sex and eating baked goods in bed, saying that snow and ice were better appreciated in the warm through a window than out in the elements. But Patrick was feeling antsy, the four walls of the apartment almost closing in on him the longer he stayed inside. They compromised, because that’s what they do now, and agreed to keep the store closed for another day and go and buy a Christmas tree for the apartment.

This had seemed like a good idea, until Patrick had seen the state at the town with lit-up eyes.

“If you die, I’ll kill you.”

“How exactly would I die doing this?”

Patrick ran a few steps before planting his feet and letting himself slide along the ice, his laugh huffing out in a cloud in front of his face. He did it again, and again, each time sliding a little further until he was looking back at David, rosy-faced and joyous, and making David’s stomach flip.

“You could slip and bang your head, falling into a coma, forcing me to choose between spending my days at your bedside or pulling the plug. A choice that you’re making quite easy at the moment,” he held out his hand and whined when Patrick didn’t take it. “Please stop.”

“Fine, fine,” he stepped towards him, hand reaching out to grab David’s, but slipped as he went. Reflexively, David caught him, grabbing him around the waist and hauling him up. “You caught me.”

“I hate you,” he took a step back, doing his best to glare at Patrick, but failing when he saw the sweet awe so clearly on his face.

“My hero,” he wound his arms around David, leaning up to kiss him before he could pull away.

“Your hero will be leaving you on your ass when you eventually fall and break your neck.”

“Get in the spirit, David. You’re being a little Grinch.”

“I’m plenty in the spirit, I would just prefer it if we had spirit out of the hospital.”

“Okay, David,” he grinned, kissing his cheek and offering his arm.

“Can we just go and let Ray swindle us out of an extortionate amount of money for a tree?” he took Patrick’s arm tightly, forcing him to walk like a normal person.

“He brought me to you, he can charge me whatever he wants,” Patrick said, cocky grin making David roll his eyes.

“Please say that in a way that doesn’t make Ray sounds like my pimp.”

“If he were your pimp, and I had to invest in your business and buy you dinner before you slept with me, you would be very expensive.”

“Obviously,” he smiled, squeezing Patrick’s arm.

“Worth every penny.”

“Aw. One of the stranger compliments I’ve been given.”

“Is it, though?”

“No, no it’s not, I'll take it.”

They fell into a sweet silence for a moment, the crunching of the ice under their feet. The distant sound of two women yelling at each other broke the peace and served as a harsh reminder that they were, in fact, still in Schitt's Creek.

David realised with a sly grin that, with his arm linked with Patrick’s, the thought of this place being home really didn’t bother him anymore.


	4. Fourth of December

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As they decorate the store, David complains, Patrick trolls, and Stevie Stevie's. That's definitely a verb.

“Are we sure just some lights won’t suffice?”

“Yes, David, we’re sure.”

The store had found itself decorated with three Christmas trees. Three. Admittedly, they’re no higher than three feet tall, but still. Three. That’s exactly three more than David had wanted. The first one was fine; he had tastefully decorated it with white lights and teal and purple ornaments, sat it just inside the door and enjoyed the compliments from customers whenever they came in out of the cold.

When Patrick had reappeared from the backroom with a tree of his own, drenched in blue and silver, David had had to really fight to keep himself together in front of the customer he was trying to sell moisturiser to. Patrick had just smirked. Little shit.

“Maybe we should just move this to the back of the store,” he had said when the customer left with a tote full of skincare. He picked it up by its stand and carried it right over to the back corner, ignoring Patrick’s laughs as he went.

“You don’t like it?” Patrick asked, his innocent act perfected after plenty of practice.

“It makes me want to take out my contacts and pour bleach in my eyes, so you decide.”

“I think it screams me.”

“I think that’s probably part of the problem.”

“So sweet.”

“I would feel bad about taking it too far, if this tree didn’t literally have – what is that?” he pulled an ornament off the tree, holding it out dangling on his finger.

“That is a shark wearing a Santa hat.”

“Oh, God.”

The third just appeared, honestly. He had gone into the back to grab more lip balms for by the register, and when he returned, there it was, mocking him.

“Where did this one even come from?” David had all but wailed, waving his hands in front of tree number three, grimacing at the creepy Santa dolls that covered it and the frankly disturbing angel on top.

“I don’t know,” Patrick frowned.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“Wait, you didn’t put that there?”

“No,” he hissed. “What about this thing screams me?”

“When I came back from helping a customer carry their bags to their car, it was there. I thought you’d done it as a joke.”

“Ugh, their eyes are following me.”

“Are you messing with me? This would be a very,” he trailed off, apparently thinking better off whatever his little comment was going to be.

“A very what?”

“A very Rose prank.”

“Oh, okay,” David snapped. Something in the back of his mind reminded him of when Alexis went through a phase of sneaking into his room at night to put china dolls on his side table as he slept. Sometimes he still saw their little staring faces in his nightmares. Shuddering, he lamented. “Okay, fair. But this had nothing to do with me. And Alexis is in Elm Hills with my Dad at some brand building workshop, so it wasn’t her.”

It was then that he had caught sight of a flash of brown hair. Squinting, he saw Stevie leaning against the Café’s window. She waved – asshole – and David started to plot his revenge.

“Mystery solved.”

Now, Patrick was balancing on top of a stepladder, trying to hang garlands above the door. Garlands that David would never admit were quite pretty.

“Will you tell me when I’m straight?”

“I think that’s something you need to work out for yourself.”

“You’re so funny.”

“I know. Lift it a little higher,” he said, watching as Patrick stretched to lift the end of the garland up and into place. “There.”

When Patrick had his feet back on the ground, they both surveyed their work, turning on the spot until they were facing Stevie’s tree.

“That needs to go.”

“Yep.”

“And we need to get her back.”


	5. Fifth of December

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A sprig of mistletoe gives Patrick an idea, while David starts to plan his revenge.

Twyla was in the middle of telling them some story about her step-uncle falling off a roof while decorating his house, but David wasn’t listening. He knew it was incredibly rude, but he had already listened to three of Twyla’s stories about her relative’s holiday-related hospital stays, and he was more interested in sliding his foot up Patrick’s leg under the table. It was a fun little game that Patrick had gotten so good at; the only tell that David’s foot had reached his knee was the tight set of his jaw.

“Anyway,” Twyla said brightly, snatching David out of his daze and back into the Café. “Both of his arms are in casts, and now my cousin Noel has to decorate the roof.”

“But isn’t Noel on house arrest?” David asked, prompting surprised looks from both Patrick and Twyla. “I listen.”

“He is,” Twyla said, smiling widely. “But that’s a whole other story.”

“One that I would love to hear, but tomorrow. The store opens in ten.”

“Oh, of course.”

“On me,” David said before Patrick could get his money.

“You feeling okay?” he asked, eyes wide.

“Some people would just say thank you.”

“Thank you, David,” he grinned.

They said their goodbyes to Twyla, who flitted away and over to Ronnie at the counter. There was a half-decorated tree near the door, with a box of decorations underneath it, that rivalled Patrick’s in its garishness, tinsel in almost every colour draped over almost every branch and ornaments that may have been made at the turn of the last century waited to be hung. He would have commented, but Patrick opened the door, and the cold took his breath away.

“Hey, wait,” Patrick said as they left the warmth of the Café. He grabbed David’s sleeve and pulled them to a stop in the doorway.

“What?”

“Mistletoe.”

“Oh,” he looked up, not entirely trusting that Patrick wasn’t just trying to kiss him.

In the past, he thought that public displays of affections were offensive and vulgar, but in recent years, since meeting Patrick, he got the appeal. Now he secretly revelled in walking arm in arm with Patrick across the town or kissing him in their booth at the Café. So, when he saw the mistletoe and Patrick’s sweet face, he was powerless to resist, leaning in to kiss his fiancé with a grin.

“We should get to the store, hard to build a loyal customer base when we’re too busy necking to open on time,” he said, walking down the steps and smiling crookedly at Patrick’s dopey look. When he got to the edge of the sidewalk, he turned back. “You ready?”

“Yep,” Patrick said, catching up to David and linking his hand with his.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A steady stream of customers filled the rest of the morning, and after convincing most of them that they needed, at the very least, two more steps in their skincare routines during the winter months, David was feeling pretty pleased with himself. During a quiet moment, he checked his phone to see that Stevie had texted _how’s charlene?_

“Patrick?” David called into the backroom, frowning at his phone. “Do we know a Charlene?”

“The angel.”

“The who? Oh, her,” he glared across the store at where Patrick had insisted they keep the horrendous tree. Whenever he wasn’t looking, David had started inching it further and further out of view. “How do you know her name?”

“Stevie and I named her.”

“I don’t know why I asked,” he turned his attention back to his phone, telling Stevie to watch her fucking back with more middle finger emojis than strictly necessary. “So, seeing as we’ve had a very profitable morning, maybe we can leave for lunch and go get pancakes.”

“Or, maybe not,” came Patrick’s reply.

“Fine,” he breathed. He turned his attention back to texting Stevie, mentally plotting his revenge, until he felt two arms wind around his waist. “Can I help you?”

“Yes, actually.”

Patrick turned him, hands pressing into his back gently as he moved. David quirked an eyebrow and, when Patrick held up a sprig of mistletoe, rolled his eyes. He kissed him gently, because of course he did; how could he not?

“Did you steal that from the Café?” he asked, arms resting around Patrick’s shoulders.

“Maybe,” Patrick shrugged, kissing David’s cheek and returning to the back.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The day went on like that; there would be a lull in foot traffic and the store would get a breather, so Patrick would sneak up behind him or lean over the counter, mistletoe in hand, and kiss David. For his part, David would shake his head and feign his exasperation almost convincingly, the twist of his smirk and the flush on his cheeks giving him away.

“I can stop, if you find me so annoying,” Patrick grinned, kissing David quickly.

“No, no. Who am I to go against tradition?”

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The little game went on until they were home, and Patrick managed to get through a whole dinner without any nonsense. He cooked for David, even surprising him with a spiced ginger cake from a little bakery just outside of town, and fed David wine until he felt pleasantly warm inside.

“What’s with you today?” he asked as Patrick poured him another glas.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re more … jovial than usual.”

“Jovial?”

“You know I get more erudite when I drink wine.”

“Is that how erudite should be used?” he asked. “Never mind. Am I not allowed to do nice things for my fiancé?”

“No, you can,” he said, smiling into his wine. “Did you forget my birthday?”

“Your birthday was in June, David.”

“Oh, yeah. Did you crash the car?”

“No.”

“Did you break something?”

“No.”

“Was it one of my sweaters?”

“You’re just,” he started, shaking his head. “You’re the first one.”

“The first one?”

“The first one that I’ve wanted to do all this with,” he looked down at his hands, and David couldn’t stop himself from reaching out and taking one. “Rachel tried, but it didn’t – Obviously it never really worked out. And last year was amazing, but everything was kind of rushed and last minute; we didn’t really get to enjoy it as much as I wanted,” he smiled, his grip tightening on David’s hand. “You’re the first, and it feels nice to actually want to do the mistletoe and the gifts -”

“No one’s arguing against gifts.”

“Good,” he grinned again, and he looked so impossibly happy David couldn’t think of a single thing he could ask of him that he wouldn’t get.

“So, I’m the first?” he asked, pushing himself out of his seat to sit in Patrick’s.

“Hmm,” Patrick hummed, arms instinctively wrapping around his waist. “You’re the only one.”

“Oh,” David breathed. “You’re the only one, too.”

When they kissed then, it was different from the other kisses they had shared that day; intense and needy from the start. David wrapped himself up in Patrick, let himself be kissed in the way he had always been missing. They kissed until they were breathing hard, until Patrick’s fingers were unforgiving, bruising against his back, until David was dragging his hands down Patrick’s chest to undo his jeans and -

“Patrick Brewer.”

“Yes, baby?”

“Did you put mistletoe down your pants?”


	6. Sixth of December

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> David has some very clear ideas about what he wants for Christmas.

“What do you want for Christmas?”

The question came as their mugs of hot chocolate had almost been drained and David began to slump into Patrick’s side. They were huddled closely in their booth at the Café, waiting for their to-go order, and David was fighting to keep his eyes open; the store had been busy all day, which he knew was a good thing, but the hours had stretched on and now he just wanted to go to bed. Also, the Café’s holiday decorations offended his eyes whenever he was forced to look at them.

“I have a list,” he murmured.

“I thought you might,” Patrick teased, his hand resting on David’s back while he leaned down to grab the list from his bag.

“They’re just ideas, you can do with them what you want,” he handed Patrick his notebook and enjoyed the laugh that huffed from between his lips as he read.

“Okay,” he sighed, rolling his eyes before they fixed on David’s. “So, this just says ‘Patrick’s hands, Patrick’s mouth, Patrick’s’”

“Do you guys want more hot chocolate with your order?” Twyla interrupted.

“Yes, please, Twyla,” Patrick chirped, cheeks flushing red. He shook his head when David’s laughter started to rock his shoulders, lifting his arm and pulling David under it. “Shut up. I need a real list.”

“I gave you one.”

“You’re so,” he paused, trying not to grin as he looked at David.

“So what?”

“Ridiculous.”

Patrick kissed him them, hard and breath-taking, and even though he assumed it was to shut him up, David melted into it anyway, suddenly not caring about the decorations or the cold or the bone-deep exhaustion settling right into him. At that moment, he cared about little else. When they pulled apart, Patrick pecked his nose gently.

“I need a list from you, too,” David said quietly, leaning in to kiss Patrick again.

“I have one,” he caught David’s mouth again, grinning as did. “David’s hands,” he kissed his cheek, teeth just gently grazing against his skin and down to his jaw, “David’s mouth,” his lips slid up to David’s before traveling down to his neck, his hand cupping the other side of his throat as he mouthed slowly at the stubbled skin there, “David’s –“

“Why aren’t you two just full of the Christmas spirit?”

“Holy fuck.”

“Good evening, Mrs. Rose,” Patrick greeted warmly, blushing deeply as he took in Moira’s holiday apparel. Or what she probably thought counted as holiday apparel, her outfit giving no doubt as to where her son gets his penchant for black.

“Good evening boys,” she slid into the booth opposite them, seemingly unaware of Patrick’s embarrassment and David’s annoyance. “Your father and I were just about to sup when I spotted the two of you and thought we would join.”

“We’re actually getting ours to-go.”

“David,” Patrick sighed, digging his elbow into David’s ribs.

“Fine.”

“I’ll go tell Twyla we’ll be eating in,” he pushed out of the booth as he spoke, starting over to join Johnny where he was sat at the counter chatting to Roland.

“I just thought you might want to check a few things off of that list when we got home,” David said before he could get too far. “But never mind.”

“You know what?” Patrick turned on his heels quickly. “You’re right, it’s a very long list, we should make a start.”

“What list?” Moira asked, eyes flicking between the two of them.

“Yeah, Patrick, what list?”

“The list of,” he started, squinting at David. “Things we need to get done at the store before Christmas.”

“Surely you can take a night off.”

“Patrick’s lists are actually very important to him.”

“Well, I just hope you aren’t working our David too hard.”

“I don’t think he minds,” Patrick grinned.

“Are the two of you joining us?” Johnny asked as he came up behind Patrick, patting him on the back warmly.

“Oh, John, they’re far too busy for the likes of us.”

“We should get dinner together soon though,” Patrick began pulling David from his seat by his elbow.

“I’ll message you on the what’s up.”

After saying goodbye and promising that Moira could test their new winter candles, they grabbed their takeout from Twyla and, hot chocolate in hand, made their way out into the cold.

“He meant WhatsApp, right?” David asked, frowning.

“Yes, Alexis put him in our group chat.”

“Group chat.”

“Yeah; me, Alexis, and your Dad.”

“I have a lot of questions.”

“I’ll answer them after we check off our list.”


	7. Seventh of December

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patrick struggles to plan more surprises for David. Stevie helps.

One of the only disadvantages of dating a perfectionist with very specific, very strong opinions that Patrick had found was that he was incredibly hard to buy for. Adding the fact that they had wildly different tastes on top of that had Patrick beginning to feel more than a little overwhelmed. There had been hints, and Patrick already had a few things planned, but nothing felt quite enough. He had spent more hours than he cared to think about on his phone as David snored next to him, scouring the internet for something that he could really surprise him with, but nothing had stood out to him.

“Has the technology for personality transplants been perfected yet?” Stevie asked, sipping her coffee and looking up from the motel’s computer at him.

“Not yet.”

“Then I have no idea. Have you asked Alexis?”

“She’s my next call.”

“Have you thought about just asking David?”

“I want to surprise him. He used to have all these amazing parties and gifts; I don’t want to disappoint.”

“So, ask him without asking him.”

“Trick him, you mean?”

“Yes, in the true spirit of Christmas.”

Just after Stevie spoke, David slipped in through the door, his arms crossed tight across his chest against the freeze. He had insisted it was time to rotate his sweaters, apparently needing different black sweaters for the winter from the ones in their apartment. Whether or not Patrick exactly understood the differences between one sweater with white flowers on it from another sweater with white flowers on it wasn’t important; it made David happy, and Patrick enjoyed watching him try them on.

“I like this one,” he said honestly, taking in his fiancé in a very soft looking sweater. “Very cute.”

“Really?” David asked, turning his torso to try and look at the back. “I thought maybe it didn’t fit right anymore.”

“No, it looks good.”

“I actually had my eye on that one,” Stevie said.

“Well, you’ll just have to get your grubby little hands on something else.”

“You’re borrowing his clothes again?”

“Only during the winter, it’s become a tradition or something,” she said, shrugging and looking up at Patrick expectantly. When he just frowned in response, she added, “did you have any traditions for the holiday time?” she asked, turning to David as she spoke.

“Uh, I used to yell at caterers then pass out fully dressed. Other than that, not really.”

“Festive,” Stevie said, reading Patrick’s mind.

“Actually,” David said, still fidgeting with his sweater. “When we were little, Adelina used to bake us these cookies on Christmas Eve.”

“Cookies?” Patrick asked, trying his best to keep his voice neutral.

“They were amazing; one gingerbread cookie sandwiched on top of another with chocolate frosting. Sometimes she would put white icing on top, and sometimes I would eat them all before Alexis woke up.”

“I think I speak for Patrick when I say, it’s a miracle you still have teeth.”

“It’s not a miracle, just a very expensive dentist,” he said with a wave of his hand. “I’m going to go grab the Givenchy, the one that you said -”

“Looks like a basketball,” Stevie finished.

“Then I’ll be ready to go,” he ignored her and left them to go play with his sweaters.

“I have to call Alexis,” Patrick said when he was sure David wasn’t going to come back. “Thanks for your help, Stevie.”

“Nothing says thank you like bottles of red wine.”

“Would you prefer wine or knowing what David plans to do with your tree decorations?”

“Wine,” she said without looking up from her screen, or even pretending to think about it.


	8. Eighth of December

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To David's surprise, Patrick finally delivers on his promise of one day.

There was little Patrick enjoyed more than watching David in his element; talking customers into buying whatever product they had shown even the slightest interest in. He could admit that, when he first met David, he worried that he might be a little abrupt? Maybe. Or perhaps a little too antisocial to successfully run a store that would require him to deal with the general public all day. But then he spent no more than five minutes – after the stoned voicemails, of course - actually listening to his plan, and he needed no more convincing that David’s idea was a good one.

When they opened, and David’s obvious knowledge of their products, and his absolute passion for the store, and his determination for it to so well, became more and more apparent with every interaction with a customer or a vendor.

He watched him now, smiling easily and helping a group of young women with their bags now full of their new winter products, out of the store, and couldn’t help but let a swell of pride fill his chest.

“I got you a present,” Patrick said after David had shut the door. He pushed the white cardboard box over the counter to David.

“Because I’ve been a good boy this year?”

“Something like that,” he smiled as David leaned over and kissed his cheek gently. “Do you want to open it now?”

“Can I?”

“You’re on the good list, you can do whatever you’d like.”

Watching David open gifts was always a lot like watching him eat; he just goes in, with little regard for whoever might be watching. He used to offer him scissors, but after last year, when David tore open wrapping paper with his teeth, he knew now to just stand back and let David do his thing. Now, after stretching his arm high to pull the tape off of the box, David was pulling a black mug with a single white rose on the side out of it and grinning.

“Is this because I hate the mugs at the Café?”

“It is,” Patrick affirmed, accepting another kiss from David. “And it goes with the rest of it.”

“The rest of it?”

“Yep, it’s in the back. Go look,” he nodded towards the backroom as he spoke, laughing to himself quietly when David wasted no time in practically running back there.

He waited, for probably five seconds, before he heard what could only be described as a squeak. Before he could turn around to go look, two arms were around his chest, the force of David’s body knocking him roughly into the counter.

“I love you.”

“Do you love me because of the espresso machine, or?”

“Yes,” David said, pressing kisses over Patrick’s neck.

“You deserve it.”

“I don’t believe that’s true.”

“You deserve everything you want,” he turned in David’s arms, wrapping him up around the waist and smiling. David grinned back, knocking his nose gently against Patrick’s.

“I got it.”

“That’s sweet,” they kissed until David broke away with a small groan.

“I was talking about the espresso machine.”


	9. Ninth of December

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patrick just really loves David. Obviously.
> 
> This chapter got a little more ramble-y than first intended, oops.

Patrick knew that six hours really wasn’t a very long time. He knew that five and a half of those hours had already passed. He also knew that staring at the clock on the wall wouldn’t make the last thirty minutes go any faster.

But here he was, sitting in the middle of the empty store, having turned open sign to close and lowered the lights, waiting for David to get back from a buyer trip.

As one of David’s jobs, this was far from a new feeling for Patrick; he ran the store alone once every few weeks, or whenever their vendors had new products to sample or just wanted to talk in person about what David had in mind. He usually tried to group a few together to save time and gas, and today had four different vendors to meet, with products ranging from soft wool scarves to peppermint and vanilla scented hand creams. Both of which, David assured him, would be very in demand this time of year. Given that David had always been in charge of the more creative choices pertaining to the store and most things in their lives – and had unarguably better taste – Patrick stayed behind to man the store, only just managing to let the bustle of customers keep him distracted from how much he missed David.

Which was stupid. Ridiculous. Embarrassing, frankly, and he would deny it to pretty much anyone who asked. Anyone but David, who not so secretly loved any reminder of how crazy about him Patrick had always been.

In spite of the store feeling too big, too quiet, and too empty without David’s presence there to fill the rooms to bursting, he did everything he needed to. He said goodbye to David just before lunch with a kiss and a smile, he ran the store and made some decent sales, he closed and tidied it, making sure that all the labels were facing the correct way so David wouldn’t have to, and then he sat. And he waited, pretending he wasn’t pining, pretending that he wasn’t watching the second hand tick on, the face of the clock mocking him as the seconds slowly turned to minutes.

The thing that made Patrick want to roll his eyes, and possibly give himself a swift slap across the back of the head, was that it was all just incredibly nice. It would be an entirely different beast if Patrick didn’t want David to stand on his own two feet, if he wanted them to be attached at the hip and have nothing but each other. That would be obsessive and unhealthy and probably, at the least, bordering on abusive. It wasn’t like that; the reason Patrick hated these days was that he missed David when he wasn’t around, and the reason he loved them was that David always came straight to him to tell him how amazing his trips had been. That was always the best part - the look of absolute pride and joy on his face, the way he couldn’t tell Patrick about it fast enough, the way he knew he had done a perfect job all on his own. Patrick knew David wasn’t used to that feeling, which made it all the more sweeter.

It was all just very nice. It was nice loving someone so much that everything felt too muted without them, too bare.

Headlights flooded the room in a blinding light, making Patrick squint with its glare. When the car halted and the engine was turned off, shrouding the street outside in darkness only broken by dim streetlights, he felt his heart beat just a little faster. David was back.

“I thought you were businessman extraordinaire David Rose,” Patrick said when David finally made his way into the store. “But you’re early, so you can’t be.”

“If you knew about the deal I got on Anise’s new winter teas, you wouldn’t be so quick to mock,” he said, shutting the door with his hip. “Good day? Or should the fact that you’re sat here under the cloak of night answer that question?”

“Very good day, the candles we promised your mother almost sold out, but I saved a few for her,” he watched as David nodded and dropped his bag gently. “I missed you.”

“Really?” he asked, smiling beautiful and brilliant. Patrick matched his grin when David ignored the other chair he had dragged out in favour of sitting across his lap.

“Yeah, the store’s too quiet without you.”

“That’s sweet. Even if you are just calling me loud.”

“Take the compliment, David,” he breathed, looking down at David’s lips. “Then kiss me.”


	10. Tenth of December

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> David gets his revenge and starts a battle in the process.

“Are you sure she won’t come back?”

“She’s having drinks at the motel with Alexis, even at the speed at which they can consume alcohol, they’ll be hours.”

“But -”

“Will you just live a little please?”

“Fine,” Patrick huffed, turning the light inside Stevie’s door on. “I was going to comment on your robber getup, but this is just how you dress.”

“We are not robbing her, in fact it’s the opposite; we’re giving her stuff back, and no court of law would ever go against us. Hold this,” he handed Patrick his bag and spent approximately three hours taking his scarf off. “You do the bathroom; I’ll do the bedroom.”

Twenty minutes later, Patrick had started feeling a bit like a felon when he met David in the middle of Stevie’s living room. David, with none of the same feeling, surveyed their work, turning on the stop and squinting.

“This is good. This is what she deserves.”

“You know, we really didn’t do that much,” Patrick said, more to make himself better than anything else. “Someone could walk in here and have no idea anything changed.”

“We know.”

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next morning, as they were treating themselves to breakfast after a job well done, Stevie approached their table. Their conversation dwindled quickly into a stagnant silence when she stopped and looked back and forth between the two of them, glaring.

“Good morning, Stevie,” Patrick said brightly.

“You’re looking fresh and well-rested.”

“Hmm,” she nodded before rolling up her sleeve and revealing a yellow-purple bruise covering her elbow.

“Ew, what is that?”

“Funny story; I was in the shower, hoping to wash off a long night's worth of tequila, and when I turned to get my shampoo, a horrifying little Santa was staring at me.”

“And he assaulted you?” David asked, feigning something between shock and anger.

“No, I jumped and banged my arm against the wall,” she said, trying to look at the angry-looking bruise. “I thought maybe you would know something about that,” she said, fixing David with a sharp stare.

“Nope.”

“No?”

“No,” David said quietly. He tried to stare back at Stevie, but the look in her eyes made him shrink into his chair. “Patrick did the bathroom.”

“David!”

“She’s scary,” he whined, sliding across the booth towards the wall. “Did you at least enjoy your night with – what’s her name?”

“Charlene,” Patrick supplied.

“With Charlene?”

“I spent the night with your sister, actually.”

“Ugh.”

“What did you do with the angel?”

“I guess we’ll find out,” David shrugged, sipping his coffee and winking at Patrick.

“David.”

“What?” he asked breezily, smiling as sweetly as he could at his friend. “Where did you even get these decorations? Were you an impoverished orphan during the Victorian times?”

“I found them in a box at the front desk, I think your Dad put them there.”

“Where would Mr. Rose find a box of old Christmas decorations?”

“I don’t know,” she said slowly.

“Wherever they’re from, they’re hideous.”

“And probably haunted,” she sighed, nodding. “This is a war,” she said, leaning in close to David as she spoke.

“You’re on.”

“Can I be left out of it?” Patrick asked hopefully.

“Absolutely not.”

“What’s mine is yours, honey.”

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The texts came steadily through the day.

The first when, they assumed, Stevie went to bed to pass out and found an angel under her pillow; a picture was sent with no message attached, which was somehow more intimidating that any scathing remark Stevie could have conjured.

The next just said  _ I’ll kill you,  _ with no other context.

“I think she means it,” Patrick said with a grin as David held his phone barely an inch in front of his face.

“ As I told you, she’s scary.”

“Yet you started a war with her.”

“Again, as I told you; she started it.”

The third just said  _ how are they everywhere? _ which gave David a sick sense of satisfaction.

Patrick was surprised to receive the fourth, the message interrupting his Christmas shopping. It read  _ you took it too far, brewer…  _ with a picture of a Santa ornament that had been drowned in a whiskey bottle. He shot back a quick reply;  **_ does any of this really seem like it came from me? _ ** After going back to work for a while, two men buying gifts for their mothers keeping him busy for a little while, he checked his phone again and smirked at the retort.  _ Do you think mob wives are innocent?  _ she asked.

Which, honestly, felt like a fair question.


	11. Eleventh of December

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little guest in the store wins over the two men.
> 
> Not that David would ever admit it.

There was a child. In his store. There was a small, smiling child in his store.

When they had first opened, Patrick had scoffed and rolled his eyes when David had wanted to put a ‘No Children’ sign at the door, telling him that isolating parents wouldn’t be good for business. And that he sounded like a psychopath, which David heartily disagreed with.

Despite his arguing, the store went without the sign, and now a child was smelling the candles with her mother in the corner and giggling. Giggling.

Patrick, the freak, had never shown anything but endless amusement when faced with an infant. At first, his behaviour had made David nervous; he hadn’t spent much time around children since he and Alexis were two chubby-faced cherubs, and the thought of becoming a father made him consider a vasectomy. But Patrick, patient, sweet Patrick, went dopey eyed every time a baby looked at him in the supermarket and had even promised a pregnant mother at the local elementary school that he would coach the little league team for the summer after she had the baby. Basically, he would make the perfect father, and that terrified David. But they had a talk, and Patrick assured him that being with David would always be far more important to him than having kids.

The talk had made David feel better, but now there was a kid in his store that he wanted to wrap in a straitjacket to stop her from touching anything else.

“She’s touched at least seventy-five candles,” he whispered, leaning in close to Patrick.

“It’s fine, David; she’s just a kid, she hasn’t got the plague,” he said, watching the little girl giggle with a grin.

“We don’t know her well enough to assume that. We should ask her to wear gloves.”

“David,” Patrick sighed. “Don’t be such a Child Catcher.”

“I don’t understand that reference.”

“Chitty Chitty, never mind. She’s not doing anything other than being very cute, leave her alone,” Patrick warned quietly. She was pretty cute, David supposed, but in the same way he thought piglets were cute; from afar, and not in his store.

“I’ll help,” he heard the little girl tell her mother, holding her hands out for the two boxes of tea her Mom was holding.

“Okay, and now we pay the men,” her mother said as she helped her daughter stretch up to place the tea on the counter.

“I left my money at home,” she said, leaning into her Mom and peering up at her with big brown eyes.

“That’s very convenient, sweetheart,” she chuckled, pulling her purse out of her pocket.

“That’s always what he says, too,” Patrick whispered to the girl, jerking his head towards David. Her returning laugh was delighted, her face flushing with the power of it. Patrick laughed back as he scanned their tea. “That’ll be $9.50, please. Thank you.”

“What do we say?” she prompted her daughter.

“Thank you,” she said, very pleased with herself.

“You’re very welcome,” Patrick said politely.

“Have a good day,” David said after them. When Patrick’s smug look settled on David, his hands flew up in the air. “What? What?”

“Oh, come one.”

Before they could talk anymore, the door swung back upon, the curly-haired kid standing there, telling her mother to look away. She ran over to where they had been looking at some of the new scarves David had got a great deal on from a very talented young lady a town over. After bundling a black and grey scarf into her arms, and after making sure her Mom wasn’t looking, she slid the scarf onto the counter and towards them.

“Will you look after this?” she asked, standing back a step so she could see over the counter.

“Look after them?” Patrick asked, smiling warmly.

“I’ll bring my Daddy he and we’ll buy it,” she rushed, sparing a quick look at her mother, who was now squinting into the store. “For Mommy.”

“For Christmas?”

“Yeah, a surprise.”

“That’s very thoughtful,” Patrick said, grabbing a sticky note from his pad and the pen from on top of David’s journal. “What’s your name?”

“Vivian.”

“Shut up, really?” David asked, earning him an elbow to the forearm from Patrick.

“Really,” Vivian said, nodding so hard her curls bounced.

“My Mom would die,” he told Patrick.

“Okay, Vivian,” Patrick said, his little huffed laugh the only confirmation that he had even heard David. “I’ll keep it right here with your name on. Have you been saving all your pennies?”

“Yeah, Grandma gives me a, um,” she frowned, tilting her head on the side to search for the word.

“An allowance?” Patrick supplied, still smiling.

“Yeah!” she said, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet, dimples on display.

“I bet you're excited for Christmas,” Patrick said, eyes following her as she started hopping from one foot to the other.

“I’ve been good,” she said surely, nodding again. “Santa told me. Have you been good?”

“Well, I have. But some people,” he trailed off, nodded his head towards David.

“No, he’s good,” she giggled, jumping towards the door and, fine, David gave in and smiled.

“Told you,” he elbowed Patrick back then, smiling at Vivian as he spoke. It was then her Mom tapped on the window.

“Time to go,” she said, opening the door for her.

“Okay. Thank you,” she waved as she ran from the store and jumped down the step.

“Oh, my God, she was so cute,” Patrick said when the door shut behind them.

David was about to make some sarcastic reply, but he then remembered how she followed her mother around like a duckling, and how she giggled at Patrick, and how she told David he was good even though he had literally just told her to shut up, and he really couldn’t think of a way to argue with Patrick. Which was a new feeling that he didn’t entirely like.

“I wouldn’t go as far as to say I liked her,” David said slowly, carefully choosing his words. “But if all children were like that one, I might think about liking them. Possibly. But possibly not.”

“Are you feeling okay?” Patrick teased, lifting his hand up to feel David’s forehead.

“This is why we’ll never have one of those,” David said, pushing Patrick’s hand away and starting over to where Vivian had been pulling all the candles and putting them back in the incorrect place. “Because it would be like this, but with two of you. And I would have to change one of your diapers.”

“You’ll have to do that to me when we’re really old. In sickness and in health, David.”

“Ew,” David scoffed, turning away so Patrick wouldn’t see him grin at the thought of being really old with him.

Diaperless, obviously.


	12. Twelfth of December

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patrick fulfils another promise.
> 
> I find Moira really hard to write, so this chapter was hard to write and I'm not entirely pleased with it, but I think it's okay.

“Ding-a-ding.”

“Good morning, Mrs. Rose,” Patrick greeted, not needing to look up from bagging up someone’s purchases to know who had just entered the store.

“Good morning, Pat,” she said, meandering over to the shelves across the room.

“Thanks, have a good day,” he said, handing the customer their bag and smiling as they left. “We got more of the soap you liked in yesterday,” he turned his attention to his soon to be mother in law, who was pretending to look over the shelves.

“Lovely,” she said, turning to the centre table and swooping up a wedge of soap. “Is David here?”

“He’s hiding an angel in Stevie’s wardrobe.”

“Last I heard, Stevie had hidden the cherub in your desk drawer.”

“Yes, she did. But their competitive streaks could rival mine, so it goes on,” Patrick said, momentarily mourning the loss of his favourite white shirt that had been lost in the Great Angel War, having spilled his tea in surprise when he went to find more graph paper.

“I’m afraid you are the long-suffering husband before you’ve even wed.”

“Uh, yes,” he said, pulling a melodic laugh from Moira. “Was there something I might be able to help you with?”

“I was hoping to cash in on that dinner you promised.”

“Oh, the dinner,” he said, feeling a pang of guilt over having forgotten about his offer entirely. “Yes, definitely. When were you thinking?”

“John suggested tomorrow.”

“We have a thing at Stevie’s tomorrow.”

“Not more tomfoolery, I hope.”

“No, drinks with her and Ted and Alexis. And I think maybe Twyla’s been roped in, too.”

“I think I see some sore heads in your future.”

“I think you might be right if the liquor store your son seems to be opening in our apartment is anything to go by.”

“Believe it or not, alcoholism runs through my side of the family,” she said seriously, leaning an arm on the counter as she spoke.

“That’s very hard to believe,” he said, glad that she seemed to miss his sarcasm.

“Are you busy on Saturday?”

“I actually have a secret meeting with Alexis on Saturday.”

“Nothing disquieting, I hope.”

“No, nothing bad,” he assured. “Just some Christmas plans I’d rather keep from David for now.”

“He’ll not hear a breath from me,” she said. Patrick wasn’t sure he believed her. “I have holiday festivities at the Schitt’s house on Sunday. And I’m afraid John is busy on Monday. And I have the last council meeting before the big day on Tuesday.”

“What about tonight?”

“What about tonight?” David asked, kicking the door shut and leaving the cold behind him.

“Dear Pat is treating us to dinner.”

“How nice of dear Pat,” David said, grin fake, though not to his mother’s eyes.

“Yes, I think the holidays have got him feeling quite benevolent,” she dropped the soap into her purse as she spoke, shouldering it and smiling sweetly as Patrick. “We’ll meet you in the Café at seven.”

“Looking forward to it,” he said. As she left, David eyed her, just on the edge of being annoyed. “She’s never going to pay for anything is she?” Patrick asked after she left.

“Including dinner, apparently.”

“I should’ve asked you, but I did promise, and we really haven’t seen much of them recently.”

“Okay, I get it; you need them to like you more than me.”

“Exactly.”

“Just means I have to put more work in with Marcy.”

“Yeah, you and my Mom really haven’t clicked,” he teased; he had seen their text chain.

“That reminds me, I promised her pictures of the store after we decorated.”

“Okay, try to be done by seven,” he said. “Six hours should be enough time to take a couple hundred pictures.”

“Our engagement photos turned out nice, did they not?”

“They did.”

“And I can’t take them today anyway; it’s too overcast and the ideal lighting would’ve been at seven-thirty.”

“So, I’ll be taking the pictures then,” Patrick said, pulling David closer until he could wind his arms around his waist.

“And missing out on an evening of making fun of Christmas movies and making out on the couch.”

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As they walked arm in arm to the Café what remained of the snow crunched under their feet and the streetlamps dimly lit the streets with an almost spectral glow. The town was eerily empty, and David was thankful that the store was only across the way from the Café.

“Do you think the town has ghosts?” David asked, tightening his grip on Patrick as he tried to ignore the shadows that lurked in every alley.

“Other than Stevie?”

“I’ll tell Alexis that one, she’ll like it. Morticia and Gomez are here early,” he said, nodding towards at the windows.

“Behave,” Patrick sighed. After holding the door open for David, the warmth of the Café was a welcome change from the weather outside. It was busy, even for the dinner rush, inside the Café, groups of people filling the booths and the room with noise. Patrick was glad; he had feared that a quiet dinner would lead to him falling asleep into his steak.

“Good evening, boys,” Johnny greeted them as they pulled out their chairs. “Long day?” he asked, probably after taking in their sleepy states.

“Busy day,” David said, flopping into his chair.

“That’s very promising.”

“We’ve actually made more profit every month since October compared to last year,” Patrick said, happy to brag a little in front of his fellow numbers man.

“Well, that’s excellent.”

“Yes, I was fearful that your little venture would have fizzled out by now.”

“It’s been your unwavering faith that’s carried us through,” David said as he raked through the menu.

“I think what your Mother means is we’re very proud of you,” Johnny said before Moira could create a comeback. “Of both of you.”

“Thank you,” Patrick said, taking a leaf out of Johnny’s book and getting in before David could, feeling something warm sprout inside of him as he did.

“Should we order some drinks?” Moira asked.

“Many, I think,” David answered.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“They book up, is all I’m saying.”

“And I’m just saying that I would rather get married by Twyla’s drunk uncle than have my wedding -”

“Our wedding.”

“Our wedding in a bingo hall, Dad.”

“If we knew when you were planning on having your nuptials, we could be more help,” Moira interjected.

“We’re fine, we’re just taking our time to plan it right.”

“So, no date?”

“No,” he snapped. “No date.”

“I’m just trying to plan, David; you know everyone looks at the mother of the groom at a wedding.”

“They should be looking at the grooms.”

They continued like that for a while, until he and Johnny had run out of baseball business chat and just watched in shared amusement as their partners bickered about whether or not it’s correct for the mother of the groom to wear a white dress to the wedding.

“Late spring,” Patrick said suddenly, without even realising he had anything to say.

“What?” Johnny asked.

“The wedding will be at some point in late spring. You said a summer wedding would be too hot here,” he said, turning to David. “And that a winter wedding would involve half of the town wearing – what was it?”

“Fleece.”

“Fleece to the wedding, which even I know is incorrect. And early spring is far too soon for dresses to be bought,” he caught Moira’s eye and earned a wink. “So, late spring.”

“Probably the end of May,” David said, as if he had known all along.

“Gives us something to look forward to through the winter,” Johnny said.

“And plenty of time to find suitable attire,” Moira agreed, sipping her wine.

“Nothing white,” the three of them said at once.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“And by the end of it, Alexis was covered in grey paint,” Moira laughed.

“And ruined my white Givenchy sweater with her grubby little mitts. On purpose.”

“John had to buy a new Maserati.”

“The old one was beautiful, too; a 1967 Quattroporte.”

“Nice.”

“And David had moved out,” Moira finished, voice high with delight.

“I was twenty-six, it was a matter of time,” David rolled his eyes, his smile beautiful and lifting his whole face.

“Wait. That would’ve made Alexis, what, twenty-three?”

“She saw herself as a bit of an artist back then,” Johnny told him, a fond grin on his face.

“No, she was _seeing_ an artist back then; Alessandro. Who I also ended up dating,” David grimaced.

“How many men do you and Alexis have in common?” Patrick asked, squeezing David’s thigh under the table.

“More than I could count,” Johnny said, shaking his head.

“More than you know about,” David corrected, prompting a moment of genuine laughter from the four of them, a moment as peaceful and joyous as it was rare, and he made a mental promise to himself to carve out more time for his parents, no matter how infuriating they were.

“I could tell you many a tale of dinner parties held in two rooms to keep the two of them apart,” Moira said, her words just barely starting to slur together.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Twyla said sweetly, standing between David and Moira and putting her hand on the latter’s shoulder. “But we’re closing in just a minute.”

Patrick hadn’t even realised that, while the wine was consumed and the conversation became more and more unimaginable, the Café had emptied, leaving just the four of them at their table.

“Thanks, Twyla,” Patrick said. “You’ll have to save those stories for another time.”

“Yes, save something for your toasts at the wedding, dear,” Johnny said, standing and helping his wife out of her chair.

“I’m sorry,” David stopped them suddenly. “Toasts? Plural?”


	13. Thirteenth of December

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They go to Stevie's to drink. Patrick loves David. Which is nice, because the feeling's mutual.

About six months into their relationship, David had discovered a new Patrick; a clingy, needy, lovey drunk Patrick that only appeared after you got passed spacey drunk Patrick. He hadn’t made many occurrences, he really wasn’t that much of a drinker, but every time he did, David fell a little more in love.

It was perfect, really. David had spent a lot of time in relationships guessing; guessing whether or not the person wanted to be with them, which they usually didn’t; if they were with someone else, which they usually were; if they were going to break up with him, which, again, they usually were. So, it was nice to be with someone who so openly wanted him, with no shame or any room were any doubts. It was nice to be at a party and look at Patrick across the room and see it written on his face that that’s his person. Not even in a possessive way, not at all. It didn’t even matter if no one else could see it, David could see it.

But he could admit that it felt even sweeter when Patrick stumbled his way across the crowded room, making a beeline straight to David, and tangled both of his arms around David’s bicep.

“You feeling okay?” he asked when Patrick tightened his grip on his arm.

“Yeah, I feel good. Really good,” he nosed along David's shoulder as he spoke, before pressing a kiss to his neck.

“Okay, good.”

Stevie’s little soiree was in full swing and, when they arrived, David felt a little swindled. She hadn’t lied, was her argument; Alexis, Ted, and Twyla had been invited, but so had probably two dozen other people. He recognised most of them after the housewarming party, and now most were pleasantly tipsy, the rest verging on messy drunk.

David being the former, Patrick the latter.

“Are you having fun?” Patrick asked, right into his ear. For the fourth time that evening.

“Yes, honey, lots of fun,” he said, pressing a quick kiss to Patrick’s lips. The smile that spread there was dangerous, and David wanted to bite it off.

“Good,” he breathed. “Alexis wants to play truth or dare.”

“That’s a good way to end up with no eyebrows. And I speak from experience.”

“Really? I can’t even imagine that,” he smiled, reaching up to cup David’s face, his thumb tracing over one of his eyebrows. “I won’t let anyone shave you, I promise.”

“My hero,” David snorted, letting Patrick kiss him again, his hands gripping David’s face tightly. “But I don’t think you could fight off Alexis, and probably Stevie, should that particular circumstance arrive.”

“No; they’re wily,” Patrick said solemnly. “And they made me do five Christmas shots.”

“What? When? Why are they Christmas shots?”

“They were in shot glasses with snowflakes on them. You should do some, they were good.”

“I don’t think I want -”

“Alexis! David wants shots!”

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In hindsight, letting his sister and Stevie talk him into six shots possibly hadn’t been the best idea David had ever had. Though to be fair, they talked him into one, he talked himself into the rest when Alexis had insisted on truth or dare. After some arguing, and a reminder from David about certain kisses that happened last time they’d played something similar, they settled on just playing truths, without the dares.

Which is how he ended up lounging at the foot of Stevie’s bed, leaning against Patrick’s bent legs, Stevie slumping into him, learning things he probably didn’t need to know about the people around him. The party had thinned, leaving just Patrick, Alexis and Ted, Stevie, and Twyla with her friend Alana. And, unfortunately, David, who had started finding it hard to stay awake.

On the bright side, not all of the things they had admitted were awful. He found out that Stevie lost her virginity in a public pool; leading Patrick to slur that he lost his in the backseat of a 1992 Ford Taurus, which he obviously already knew, and Alexis chirped that she lost hers at a beach house in Miami as Brandy’s I Wanna Be Down played, which he unfortunately also already knew.

“It was over by the time the song finished,” she had said, rolling her eyes.

Ted admitted that he once broke into a grocery store for cookies during the only time he ever got high, Twyla told them that she frequently spits into rude patrons food at the Café, striking fear into David the longer she spoke, and her friend – girlfriend? David wasn’t sure – told them that she eats roadkill, prompting a mental note to never speak to her again.

“David’s turn,” Alexis sang, shimmying her shoulders.

“Ugh.”

“I’ll ask,” Ted said, drunk but not as drunk as David had seen him. “Who’s the most famous person you’ve ever hooked up with?”

“Umm, I once redacted, with redacted, at redacted.”

“David,” Stevie warned, flopping back onto the bed next to Patrick.

“What? He made me sign a gag order.”

“So, it’s a he,” Ted said thoughtfully.

“I know who it is,” Patrick laughed. “And I’m very jealous.”

“Jealous of David, or?” Alexis asked.

“Don’t,” David hissed.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Later, when he and Patrick were the only two left in Stevie’s apartment, they helped clean as Stevie took out the trash.

“I’m so tired.”

“Me too,” David whined. “I think I’ll pass out the minute my head hits the pillow.”

“I don’t think I’ll make it that far; you might have to carry me home.”

“Good try, not happening.”

“Hey, if you can carry me up a mountain, you can carry me for four streets.”

“Not happening,” he said, smiling. After a minute of putting trash bags outside Stevie’s front door, he noticed Patrick’s flushed smiling face. “What?”

“Did you know Stevie put the angel in your underwear drawer?”

“I hate her. Really?”

“Yeah, so I put it in her fridge.”

“I love you so much.”

“I love you, too,” he grinned, tying the now full bag and dropping it on the floor.


	14. Fourteenth of December

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after the night before, the boys have some regrets.

There was a crook in his neck, and he was too hot, sweating and drooling onto something that felt like polyester. His pillows weren’t polyester, though, so what the hell is he sleeping on? _Patrick_ , he thought, the memory that he did, in fact, have a fiancé suddenly bright in his mind. That  _ had  _ to be Patrick, breathing evenly under the weight of David’s arm and, wait, snoring? Patrick doesn’t do that, David does that, but he’s awake, mostly. He wanted to open his eyes, but the burning behind them pulled a muted whine from deep inside him, so he gave up. Was he dying? Or dead? Maybe. Why was he so warm? Did he sleep in his clothes? Probably. But the answer to that question would have to wait until he remembered how to open his eyes without it hurting.

A weight he hadn’t been aware of shifted on top of him, and that was enough to force his eyelids to snap open, a dull ache throbbing through his poor head. It was plaid, he noticed, and an arm. A plaid covered arm.  _ Stevie. _ Stevie was spooned up behind him, her arm and leg threw over David as she snored gently, and that’s why he was so warm. It was all starting to come back to him; the party, and the drinking, and the drinking with Patrick and Stevie after everyone left and they were supposed to be sleeping. 

So, they blacked out in Stevie’s bed, that’s fine, he’s not dying.

“Unghhherr,” was the noise that came from somewhere within Patrick, and that’s really the only way he could describe it. David squinted at him, and his sweet face had started to screw up into a frown.

“Good morning, dear,” he whispered.

“Is it?” he croaked, groaning with the effort of it. “Am I dying?”

“Maybe, honey, maybe,” he murmured.

“Okay, good,” he said, turning his face into the pillow. He was quiet, so David assumed he had drifted off until he asked thickly, “did I tell everyone that I lost my virginity in a Ford?”

“Yes, you did,” David said quietly. “But that wasn’t the most embarrassing story so don’t worry.”

“Oh, yeah; you told them about -” 

"Shh."

“Not that he’s embarrassing, but having sex in a -”

“Shh,” David hushed again, blindly trying to cover Patrick’s mouth with his hand. “Don’t wanna get sued.”

“Sorry,” he said, hushed. He rolled over and went to wrap David up around the waist. Instead, he got a handful of someone else’s thigh. Frowning, he finally opened his eyes, “is this a Stevie?”

“Stop feeling me up, Brewer.”


	15. Fifteenth of December

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The stress of the holidays start get to Patrick and David.

Something that seemed to surprise a lot of people about his and Patrick’s relationship was the fact that they didn’t really fight all that much. They bickered, as two people with a penchant for teasing and strong opinions were want to do, but actual fights were few and far between. Their flirty banter rarely strayed into real arguing, and when it did, they were miserable.

As this particular fight happened, it felt as though it had come from nowhere; they were talking, then they were fighting, then they were decidedly not doing either of those things. In hindsight, though, when David could look back and see their hangovers and the stress of the holidays just looming around the corner, plus busy days at the store and spending almost every minute together, an eruption should have felt inevitable.

Maybe ‘eruption’ was slightly dramatic. Which, ironically, had been what Patrick had called him as they fought over where to get dinner. Of all fucking things.

After passing out, exhausted after an evening of yelling, David had actually woken up first. Relieved that Patrick was even still there after the night before, he got ready and out of the door faster than he could ever remember doing in his life, leaving a quick scribbled note telling Patrick to come in whenever he woke up, mostly as some kind of white flag, but also because he didn’t want to carry any kind of hostile energy into the store.

The two hours of working alone actually went quite quickly. Yawning, he opened up, replenished products where needed, and a steady flow of customers brought with their purchases a welcome distraction from the previous day. But, as lunchtime approached, the void in the store was obvious every time David tripped over something and no laugh followed, or whenever a lull in customers didn’t bring arms around his waist and a kiss to his lips. The longer he tried to forget it, the harder it became to ignore the fact that, even though you look around the store and see mostly David, Patrick’s presence had seeped into the walls, and David felt a little colder without him there.

A ding of the bell behind him let in a rush of freezing air and pulled David out of his wallowing just in time to slip on his customer service smile and greet the next customer.

“Welcome to – oh,” he stopped when he turned and saw Patrick, with flowers in his hand and a sheepish smile. “Hey.”

“Hey,” he said softly, and David noticed with a sickly feeling that his usually self-assured, happy fiancé looked a little deflated.

“Are those for me?” he asked, eyeing the pretty flowers as he spoke.

“No,” he said, grinning impishly and handing the flowers to David. “I’m sorry,” he breathed, smile gone as suddenly as it appeared.

“Me too,” David rounded the counter, unable to handle the sad slump of Patrick’s shoulders any longer. He pulled Patrick into his arms, wrapping him up around the neck and burying his face in Patrick’s shoulder. “It was dumb. We can eat wherever. I don’t care.”

“I think it might be a little late for that, seeing as we ended up ordering pizza twelve hours ago, but you’re right; it was dumb. And you do have superior taste in everything, including food,” he was smiling again as he spoke, David could feel it against his shoulder, and he suddenly, gratefully felt the tension ease from his body.

“I didn’t mean it,” he said, squeezing him tighter than was probably healthy. “Well, I did, but I shouldn’t have said it.”

“And you are dramatic, but I shouldn’t have said it,” he kissed David’s neck, grabbing handfuls of his sweater and whining when he tried to pull away. “Stay. Just for a minute.”

“Okay.” He said softly, resting his cheek back on Patrick’s shoulder and breathing him in. “I’d stay forever.”


	16. Sixteenth of December

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'll be honest, I went out for a few hours and came home thinking I had wrote this chapter already, only to find that I hadn't and I've been frantically writing for like two hours.
> 
> So if there's some mistakes, I'm sorry, this is all a little last minute-y.

The kitchen was too hot. And too small. And too loud, Alexis’ voice filling every crevice brilliantly as she called her instructions from her perch on the couch. Honestly, the baking had turned out better than he could have hoped; the biscuits baked evenly, which he had read was a great concern, only one had cracked, and they smelled amazing. The icing, on the other hand, was becoming a problem.

“Can you try it with a knife?” Alexis asked, making some vague kind of spreading motion with her hand.

“I don’t think so,” he grumbled.

“I don’t know how Adelina did it, they were just there when I woke up Christmas morning. And they were yummy. And snowflakey,” she said, joining him at the table and tilting her head to the side. “We could dunk them in,” she suggested airily, dipping her finger in the icing. “And by ‘we’ I mean you because Ted is picking me up to see his awful friend’s awful singing. Honestly, Patrick, you would imagine that an ENT would know that he can’t sing, but,” she shrugged, sinking her finger into the icing again and sucking it off, “tastes so good, though.”

“Yeah, thanks for your help,” he sulked, watching as he shimmied backward and towards the door. “Maybe my Mom can help.”

“Yes, she seems like she knows a lot about life,” she nodded quickly, pulling her boots on. “Honestly, I think you could give David pretty much anything and he would appreciate it coming from you.”

“I just wanted them to be nice.”

“I know, you’re a good button,” she said, blowing him many kissing as she opened the door. “Text me, tell me how it goes.”

“I will.”

He didn’t move right away because, if he could pride himself on anything, it was the way he knows the Rose siblings.

“3, 2, 1 …”

“Hey, Pat,” she said, swinging the door back open. “Do you think -”

“Icing’s all yours, Alexis,” he smiled, holding the bowl out in front of him.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Don’t squeeze too hard, you’ll break the bag.”

“Mom, if I don’t squeeze, nothing happens.”

“When did you lose all of your patience?”

“When I started making these cookies,” he whined, childish, just to see his mother shake her head. “Gentler?”

“Gentler,” she agreed. Although a little fuzzy through his iPad screen, his mother’s smiling face was a welcome sight in his flour-covered kitchen. “How much icing do you have left?”

“Not much, Alexis just left with a bowl to eat with, I don’t know, her hands.”

“I like her,” his mother laughed.

“Me too,” he said. He was quiet for a minute, holding his breath as the icing finally did as it was told and squeezed through the nozzle. “It’s happening.”

“Good, keep going; don’t squeeze too hard now, you’ll get shaky hands.”

“Okay, hang on.”

He made his mother hang on for a while, a sweet stream of tales of his cousins and his uncle dressing as Santa filled the room as he did his very best to pipe snowflakes onto the cookies. By the time he had iced six cookies, they were both teary-eyed with laughter.

“Sweetheart, they look like you’ve been drinking. Have you been drinking?”

“No, I’m trying my best; how are you so good at this?”

“Twenty-nine years of birthday cakes, Christmas cookies, Easter biscuits, and whatever else your sweet tooth asked for.”

“Only twenty-nine? You owe me a few.”

“Stop it,” she chuckled.

“Did I ever thank you?” he asked, his tongue stuck out in concentration as a gloop of icing dropped messily onto the cookie.

“For cake?”

“For everything,” he said simply. “For being the best mom. Ever.”

“Oh,” she breathed. “You don’t need to thank me for that.”

“I could thank you every day, and it wouldn’t be often enough,” he said, finally looking up from his work to catch the tears twinkling in his mother’s eyes. “You want to see this one?”

“Hang on, Dad’s here, I think he’d like to see it.”

After some shuffling around and some reminders from Patrick that he couldn’t actually see them if his Dad’s thumb covered the camera, his Dad came into view.

“Hey, kid,” he greeted, face redder than usual.

“Hey, cold out?”

“Freezing,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “What did you want to show me?”

“Okay, prepare yourself,” he warned, smiling and swooping up the iPad. After angling it just right, he asked, “what do you think?”

“Oh,” he whispered. “Did… did kids make those?”

“What? No! What kids do I know?”

“I don’t know! Who made them?”

“I did!”

“Are you drunk?” his Dad laughed, face somehow redder.

“I’m trying to make something nice for David.”

“Well, they say it’s the thought the counts,” his Dad offered.

“A sentiment I hope isn’t lost on him.”

“Maybe put the nicer ones at the front,” Mom said, probably hoping to help but only furthering his panic.

“What do I do if there are no nice ones?”

“Pray.”

“Thanks, Mom,” he gave in then, flopping into the chair and laughing, his arms shaking with it as he held the iPad in front of him. “When we visit, will you please make him something nice, show him that not all the Brewers are useless?”

“Yes, something chocolate.”

“Perfect.”

“And you aren’t useless,” Dad said. “You just aren’t known for your artistic prowess.”

“No, that’s why the creative choices are all left for David,” he told them. As he spoke, he heard his fiancé’s voice carry from the hall. “Speak of the devil.”

“Oh, we’ll leave you to it,” she said. “He’ll love them.”

“And if he doesn’t, he’s already said he’ll marry you.”

“Thanks for your help,” he grinned. “I love you both.”

“Love you too,” they both said at once, right before their faces disappeared. He just had time to put himself between the table and the door when David flung it open and kicked it closed behind him.

“That cute guy with the tattoos is definitely Frank’s boyfriend, if their canoodling in his doorway is anything to go by,” he said, probably in way of a greeting. “Are we having a party? Why is their white powder everywhere?”

“Uh, no, I’ve been making you a present.”

“I haven’t had that type of present in probably ten years, but okay. Hi,” he said when he stopped in front of Patrick, kissing him lightly on the cheek.

“Busy afternoon?”

“For both of us, it seems,” he took in the mess, pained expression etched onto his face.

“Are you hungry?”

“Always.”

“Would well-meaning, slightly unpleasant looking ginger cookies interest you?”

“Well-meaning – What?” he frowned.

Patrick manoeuvred himself out of David’s grasp and sheepishly pushed the plate across the table towards David.

“You made them?” David asked, not waiting for an answer before scooping up a cookie and taking a bite. “Oh, my God. They’re good, you made these?” he groaned, tipping his head back and dropping the rest into his open mouth.

“Yeah. Alexis… helped.”

“Because that’s what she’s known for.”

“Well, she sat on the couch and stole a bowlful of icing.”

“She’s such a vulture.”

“And she supervised, which is apparently a skill she learned whilst smuggling diamonds through South Africa.”

“With Arno,” David nodded, opening his mouth wide for another cookie.

“So, I’m told,” he grinned. “She was actually very helpful.”

“Hmm, I’m supposed she was bound to be useful eventually,” he said, still chewing.

“David.”

“Fine, I’ll thank her.”

“Good. Can I have one?”

“Um,” he considered, looking down at the plate and back to Patrick. “You can have this one with the crack through it.”

“David,” he said again, incredulous, rolling his eyes until David smirked.

“Kidding. Open your mouth,” he did as he was told, and was pleasantly surprised when he took a bite.

“That’s not bad. My Mom won’t believe it.”

“Your Mom?”

“Yeah, she helped, too, with the icing.”

“Hmm,” he said, frowning again. “No offense, honey, but there’s no way Marcy had any kind of input with the way these look.”

“Would you like me to take them back, then?”

“Mine,” he said, the hand not clutching the plate swatting at Patrick’s grasp. “They’re all mine,” he shoved another on into his mouth whole, smile struggling to spread around it. “This is the nicest gift I’ve ever gotten.”

“Oh,” Patrick said quietly. “Well, I’ll make you them whenever you want.”

“Whenever I want them?”

“I’m not making you another plate tomorrow; you’re not eating all of these today.”

“We’ll see.”


	17. Seventeenth of December

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> David panics, Patrick is sweet. The usual.

Like their fight, and Stevie’s pranks, and Alexis stealing a bowl full of icing, and his Mother being a nightmare, this panic attack should have seemed inevitable.

He was fine one minute, manning the store while Patrick made a lunch run, quite happily watching as what he assumed were boyfriends – possibly husbands or something, but there were no rings – argue over what they were buying each other for the holidays. Smiling, he listened as one insisted on buying him whatever he was holding until it hit him with an awful, cold feeling right in the pit of his stomach.

He hadn’t bought Patrick any presents.

When Christmas music greeted him at the store on the 1st, he thought he had plenty of time and didn’t need to worry yet. Which, he would argue, was true. Then things just kept happening, and his silly thing with Stevie kept him occupied – the angel currently inhabiting Stevie’s microwave being proof of that – and the store had been so busy, and they had been snowed in, and had drinks and dinners, and the days just got away from him.

But there was no excuse good enough. And he knew that, which is how he ended up sitting against the wall in the back room with his head on his knees, an awful sick feeling making his stomach turn upside down and his lungs apparently fill with sand.

When the bell dinged, another jolt of dread coursed through him, and tears spilled onto his cheeks. Patrick could buy him thoughtful gifts and even bake cookies for him, but David couldn’t even manage to lock the door before he had a stupid breakdown over what an awful fiancé he was.

“Hey,” a soft voice said, gently pulling him away from his rapidly spiralling thoughts.

“Patrick,” he rasped, wanting to say more but a pathetic, gasping sob took his breath from him.

Arms were around him quickly, tugging him in, holding him so tight. Patrick held him without question, the answers didn’t matter yet; what mattered was rubbing a calming, steady hand over David’s back, whispering sweet words into his ear, and holding all his broken pieces until they fit themselves back together. They sat quietly until David felt his breathing even out, until his mind felt a little clearer.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Patrick said quietly, hand beginning to move over his back again.

“I do.”

“No, it’s fine, David. You’re fine,” his lips found the back of David’s clammy neck, resting there until David moved to sit up, looking to Patrick with wide, wet eyes.

“I’m the worst, you should break up with me.”

“Okay,” Patrick huffed with a smile.

“I mean it.”

“Why? What’s happened?”

“I can’t tell you, it’s too horrible,” he said, sitting back against the wall next to Patrick.

“Okay, so we’ll just sit here until you feel like telling me,” he made a show of settling back against the wall.

“Fine,” David sighed. “I forgot to buy you anything for Christmas. And now it’s only like a week away, and I can’t think of anything to get you because you’re really sweet and annoying and never ask for anything, and you’ve been literally nothing but thoughtful and got me amazing gifts and baked me cookies and -”

“David.”

“You should just break up with me.”

“David,” he breathed, smiling and lovely. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does though!”

“It doesn’t, I promise. Come here,” he lifted his arm, letting David curl into him. “I don’t need anything.”

“I know you don’t, but I don’t need cookies and a coffee machine and whatever else, but you got me them because you’re nice.”

“You’re nice, David,” he said softly. “Look at me.”

“No.”

“David,” he sighed, his hand pulling at David’s hair gently until he looked up. “Don’t get me anything.”

“I can’t not get you anything.”

“I’m telling you not to get me anything,” he said slowly. “Being here with you and your family is more than I could ever ask for, I promise you. I don’t want anything else, and I certainly don’t want you twisting yourself up in knots just trying to make me happy. That would make me very unhappy.”

“That’s sweet but – oh,” he gasped loudly. “Oh, I just got an idea.”

“Is it a puppy?”

“Absolutely fucking not. Can you watch the store for an hour?”

“Sure, graceful,” he chuckled as David clambered up and staggered towards the store. “Hey, David?”

“Hmm, yes?” he said, turning at the archway to look at him.

“Budget.”

“What?”

“The wedding budget.”

“Oh, ew. Why?” he whined, colour back in his cheeks, irritation back in his eyes. “So inconvenient.”

“So romantic.”


	18. Eighteenth of December

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little guest brings a gift to the store.

“I just saw the pictures you sent us.”

“Oh, yeah?” Patrick said, holding his phone between his ear and his shoulder while he replenished toners.

“Yeah, the angel’s a little out there, but the store looks beautiful, sweetheart,” his Mom’s voice was everything like home, warm and familiar and comforting when he hadn’t even realised he needed comforting.

“Hey, Charlene is basically a member of the family at this point.”

“I feel like there’s a story there.”

“I’ll tell you about it during our next Facetime. Though only after David shows you pictures of the suit he’s got planned for the wedding.”

“He already emailed me the photos, it’s lovely. He’ll look so handsome.”

“Hey, he’s an almost married man.”

“Oh, I know I’m far too late for that ship.”

“Marcy Alice Brewer,” he chuckled. When he heard the bell ding he turned, disappointed to have to prematurely say bye to his Mom, but just found himself grinning wider. “He just got back with my tea, you want to talk to him?”

“I’d love to.”

“Okay, so we’ll Facetime tomorrow?”

“Yes, when Dad gets home from helping your cousin get her car back from the compound.”

“There’s a story there.”

“Tomorrow,” she promised. “Let me talk to David.”

“Is he your favourite now?” he asked, kissing David on the cheek and whispering ‘my Mom’ to him.

“Yes. Love you.”

“Love you too,” he said before he handed his phone to David.

“Hi, Marcy,” David said. Patrick tried not to eavesdrop but, as he turned his attention back to the toner, he heard him say “as if I could ever be too busy for you,” and he was glad David couldn’t see his stupid smile.

He tuned them out for a while, happy to let the two of them talk, about him probably, as he finished with the toners and started on the accompanying cleansers. Not that he actually knew the difference between the two. As he worked, his mind drifted to David in a suit, then to David on their wedding day in a suit, then to David at the alter in a suit, and finally to David on their wedding night definitely not wearing a suit.

“She loves me,” David preened, wondering around and pulling Patrick from his thoughts. Unfortunately. “I’m so edging you out.”

“And she thinks you’re handsome,” he said over his shoulder.

“She has eyes, so,” his voice was closer now, and he could almost hear his smirk.

“Ever the modest.”

“Oh my God,” David said loudly, the suddenness of his outburst making Patrick jump.

“What?” he asked, dropping the cleansers on the counter and turning.

“There is a man that could only accurately be described as a Greek God walking towards the store right now,” he grabbed Patrick’s arm and pulled until he stumbled into his side.

“Careful, Da – Oh, fuck,” he said softly.

“Oh, wow; he’s so hot he made you swear.”

“Shut up,” he hissed. He watched as the God-man held his arm – what kind of person has arms that look like that through layers of winter clothing? - out beside him, and it finally clicked. “Oh, it’s Vivian.”

“Whom?”

“The girl, with her Mom, and the scarf.”

“Oh; the Gremlin who was messed up my shelves.”

“Stop it,” he said, his smile making his words less effective. “Welcome back,” he greeted them warmly.

“Did you remember my scarf?” she asked, little face flushed as Patrick’s suddenly felt.

“Vivi,” the man - perfect, soft mouth smiling, perfect, beautiful eyes rolling, perfect face being perfect - said before Patrick could reply.

“Oh, right. Hello,” she rushed, earning a nod from her Dad. “Did you remember my scarf? I got my Daddy.”

“You did. We did, let me grab it,” Patrick untangled his arm from David’s tight clutch and rounded the counter. “Here.”

“Thank you,” Vivian bounded over to the counter and pointed. “See!”

“Very nice,” God-man said, smiling – his  _ mouth  _ – at his daughter. “How much do I owe you?”

“It’s $18.95,” Patrick said. While the man dug into his pocket for his wallet, David, from his spot across the store, had his hands on his face and neck, catching Patrick's eye just to mouth something completely unintelligible. Something that he somehow completely agreed with.

“Hi, little one,” David said awkwardly when he realised Vivian had caught him checking out her Dad. “Are you still being good?”

“Yes,” she chirped immediately. Her father just snorted as he handed Patrick a twenty.

“She manages to get everyone under her spell,” he said, shaking his head, perfect hair falling just in front of his face as he spoke.

“She’s very sweet,” Patrick said because saying ‘it runs in the family’ would be wildly inappropriate. Finding the correct change took his eyes away from the man, and he was both disappointed by and grateful for the distraction.

“Oh, keep the change,” the man said as he shoved the scarf inside his jacket, somehow making the both of them jealous of a scarf.

“You don’t have to -”

“ _ You _ didn’t have to save this for her. Keep the change, I insist,” he said firmly - hotly - with a wave of his hand, before turning to his daughter with a warm, lovely smile. “Vivian.”

“Thank you. Happy Christmas.”

“Happy Christmas. I hope your Mommy likes the scarf.”

“She will,” she said, grabbing her Dad’s hand and dragging him away. “Bye-bye.”

“Thanks again,” her Dad said, waving to both of them before being pulled from the store.

“I know what I want for Christmas,” Patrick said, leaning forward onto the counter, trying to catch a final glimpse of the man, and action that would have had him feeling a little guilty had his fiance not been doing the same thing.

“I know right,” David breathed. “I honestly considered throwing my coffee over him so he’d have to take his shirt off.”

“David,” he chided. “You should have.”

“I didn’t want to get arrested during the holidays.”

“I could have bailed you out.”

“Fuck, you’re right,” he whined. “I would be a stepfather if it meant being with that man.”

“Would you?”

“I would certainly think about it," he huffed, taking a long sip of his coffee. Probably to quench his thirst. "There are some wonderful boarding schools, and they never did Alexis and I any harm.”

“I would argue with that.”


	19. Nineteenth of December

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A toy drive brings out the worst and best in David.
> 
> This chapter was meant to be about 500 words but ended up being over 2,500 ... so I'm sorry!

The Brewer family had quite specific traditions when it came to Christmas.

Firstly, no buying his Dad socks. A very strict, religiously upheld tradition stemming from Christmas 2003 when Clint very graciously received socks fourteen times, prompting his Mom to sweetly but firmly suggest a new tradition, one that had been upheld ever since; no socks.

Secondly, they attended Midnight Mass every Christmas Eve. Last year, when it became apparent he wasn’t going to make it home for the holidays, Patrick had made a very guilty phone call home to break the news that he would be staying. As if lying about needing to take care of the store as he spent Christmas with David wasn’t bad enough, he knew he wouldn’t make it to Mass – he hadn’t even set foot in a church since moving away. His mother had been nothing but kind about it, which was forever worse; he would rather she just yell at him. By the following Sunday, when the chromosomal Catholic guilt became too much to handle, he googled the nearest church and went for twelve straight weeks, only shirking the habit when the guilt had eased and David had convinced him that spending Sunday mornings in bed would be exactly what Jesus would want. He wasn’t sure that was true, but when David’s lips found his neck under the warm fort of blankets, who was he to argue?

And thirdly, the toy drive, a tradition in the Brewer household since he was fourteen and found out that the kids he babysat for couldn’t afford Christmas presents. When he told his Mom, they went out and bought gifts for the three of them, but he couldn’t shake the feeling of incompetence, a feeling he knew his mother shared. After doing some research, they found a toy drive and started donating every year, his Mom even becoming one of the organisers for the last three years. The tradition had carried on even after he went to college, with Patrick saving a little money each month from his job waiting tables to buy toys. Last year, he had sent money to his Mom and asked her to buy toys in his place, only adding to the towering mountain of guilt growing inside of Patrick.

So, it was perfect when they were walking over to the Café and they passed Twyla, who told them she was taking her lunch early to go by toys for a local drive. As David went inside to order their food, he pestered her for details and, upon finding out he only had two days before the drive, quickly made his plans.

Which is how he found himself in the middle of a toy store with a disgruntled David at his arm.

“When do you think they’ll stop making such hideous toys and start using a more muted, pastel colour palette?”

“I would imagine when you humanoids take over and Walt Disney is but a distant memory,” he said, feeling a little overwhelmed in the middle of an aisle. “Speaking of which, my cousin Connie said that Toy Story is very popular right now.”

“Is Connie the one with three kids or the one with three dogs?”

“Kids.”

“Poor thing. But didn’t Toy Story come out in, like, the mid ’90s?” David asked, following Patrick across to another aisle, where he had caught a glimpse of Buzz Lightyear as they passed.

“There have been three sequels since then, David.”

“Good God,” he stood, arms crossed, foot tapping on the linoleum, and waited whilst Patrick loaded more toys in his cart. “I would like to remind you that we could be spending this lunch break eating cake or making out in the back room, instead of here, at a place that I can only imagine would he hell on Earth if I were an epileptic. Actually, it’s hell on Earth anyway.”

“David,” Patrick sighed. “If I don’t do this now, I’ll have nothing for tonight. I’m not making you go with me, you didn’t even need to come with me here, so can you just help me, or at least stop complaining for five minutes?”

“Okay, wow,” he snapped back at Patrick. “Would you like me to help you get all of your crap onto a register, or are you not done feeding the world, Bob Geldof?”

“No, that would actually be very helpful, thank you,” Patrick cracked back, stropping past David and leaving him to huff at Bo Peep.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It took some convincing, for some reason, but after a string of texts longer than David cared to admit, Stevie agreed to meet him for some food while Patrick did his good deeds. After stuffing all of Patrick’s purchases into the trunk of his car like a massive, annoying game of Tetris, he had asked him – completely politely, of course – to drop him off at the Café.

“Do you want me to pick you up after?” Patrick asked as they pulled up outside.

“Will you be late?”

“I don’t know, it depends on whether or not I help clean Town Hall up after.”

“I can walk,” he said quietly, unbuckling his seat belt and pushing himself out of the car.

“Okay, text me when you get home,” Patrick said, rolling the window down after David closed the door. “So I know you haven’t been abducted by a Bundy copycat or something.”

“Funny,” he said, looking through the open window and rolling his eyes. “Have fun.”

“You too.”

“I hope you don’t catch anything from kids sneezing in your face.”

“Go meet Stevie,” he said, the small smile on his mouth soothing any worries Dad had about their little tiff earlier.

He did what he was told and, after stomping up the Café steps, saw Stevie curled in a booth, coffee cup in her hands, listening to whatever Alexis was rambling about.

“What are you doing here?” he asked her as he slid into his seat.

“Um, I saw Stevie sitting here alone and she insisted I join you, David.”

“Yes, I insisted,” Stevie nodded, catching David’s eye and raising her brows.

“Where’s little Pat, anyway? Are you two having problems?” Alexis asked, condescending, reaching across the table to grab at David.

“What? No,” he slapped her hand away. “He’s at a charity drive, for some reason.”

“I imagine that reason would be he’s a nice person, who does nice things for other nice people.”

“Exactly. Which is why the two of you together have never really made sense,” Alexis said, trying to bite her smile away.

“Fuck off.”

“I’m kidding, David! You’re nice, just in a different way.”

“Yeah,” Stevie piped in, enjoying herself. “Like when you ran over that one-legged pigeon -”

“That was an _accident._ ”

“And put it out of its misery. That was nice.”

“Thanks so much,” he spat.

“What kind of drive is it?” Alexis asked.

“A toy drive.”

“Like, little toy cars?”

“No, not that kind of drive,” he groaned, ignoring Stevie’s snort. “A toy drive, like he gives toys to kids who have parents who can’t afford them.”

“What a generous little button.”

“I know,” David grinned.

“Did he not ask you to go with him?” Stevie frowned.

“No, he did,” David admitted painfully. “But he said he understood that kids aren’t my thing and I that I really didn’t have to go if I didn’t want to.”

“I’m sure he meant that,” Alexis said.

“In my defence, we are meant to be saving for a wedding in a matter of months,” he said, hearing how he sounded as he spoke and immediately wishing he could take it back. Just as he was about to defend himself again, he got a text that really didn’t help. _Sorry I snapped earlier,_ it read. He was about to send Patrick a reply when he got another that just said _love you_.

He felt, well, he didn’t really know how he felt. Deflated, maybe. Selfish, mostly, right in the pit of his stomach, the feeling filling him until he had a lump in his throat. He wanted to crawl out of his skin. Or go back and wake up this morning ready to help Patrick before he even asked. Patrick who didn’t ever need to think twice about helping people he had never even met, and didn’t grumble as he did, who came from a family that didn’t have much but shared what they had, and who would do his best to give David anything he asked for. When thoughts of Patrick became too much, thoughts of past David trying to please a room full of rich, vain idiots threatened to flood his memories, and he couldn't have that. Looking passed Stevie and Alexis, he saw Jocelyn carrying baby Roland and a bag of teddy bears towards Town Hall, and that was all he could take.

“Can you imagine all their sweet little faces?” Alexis was cooing. Honestly, David had been too lost in his wallowing to even realise she was still talking. “Waking up on Christmas without any presents? Poor things.”

“So, I’m just a terrible person,” he sighed, fed up with the haunting of Christmas Past, Present, and Future.

“Yes,” they both said at once.

“Okay, what are you two doing to help the destitute this Christmas time?”

“I’m guessing,” Stevie said, putting her mug down, “we’re driving you to a toy store.”

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The toy drive was exactly as David had imagined.

Awful Christmas music played over the loud thrum of excited kids, and he was shoved exactly three times by various children running eagerly to look at the toys. By the time they were in the actual hall of Town Hall, he was sweaty and anxious, and his arms ached from carrying his four bags of toys.

“Can you see Patrick?” he asked Stevie, raising his voice to be heard over all the noise.

“No,” she said, standing her toes looking, arms full of soft toys.

“He’s over there,” Alexis pointed with her free hand, the other very busying holding a single bag.

David followed her finger, smiling lopsidedly when his eyes landed on Patrick. He was quite busy, by the looks of it, a toddler on each knee and more at his feet, listening intently as he read from some obnoxiously huge book. They all laughed noisily when he gestured, his eyes alight and suddenly landing on David. His grin was nothing short of beautiful, and David realised that he could think of literally nowhere else he would rather be than right here, in a room full of screaming kids, flashing toys, his jubilant fiancé, and, apparently, his mother.

“He’s quite popular, our Patrick,” she said, appearing seemingly from nowhere and freeing one of his hands of two bags. “He’s barely been alone for a second since he got here.”

“Why are you here?” he asked, following her over to a table full of toys.

“The Jazzagals are offering our services a little later and treating the little mites to a song or five,” she said, waving for them to follow her. “So, I insisted we lend our hands before, quite generously.”

“I wasn’t there for that conversation, but I’m sure that’s not what happened,” he said, heaving his bags onto the table.

“You three take a name tag and get stuck in,” she said, spinning around and swirling away.

“But you’re not wearing a name tag,” Alexis called, huffing loudly.

“No, dear; Saint Laurent doesn’t like stickers.”

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After some arguing among the three of them, Stevie eventually won and stuck a name tag that said Dana on his chest. Alexis almost immediately wormed into the crowd of people, winding through an army of small children to join Patrick in his rocking chair.

“Do you think there’s booze?” Stevie asked.

“I don’t. But, if you find any, bring me some.”

The already full room only got busier as the evening went on, the hall filling with the happy sounds of red-faced kids opening their bags full of toys and the buzzing chatter of parents and volunteers until the room was fit to burst. He was surprised by how not awful it all was, at how he didn’t feel out of place like he had worried he would; he just felt kind of warm and nice? It was nice, it was all so nice, it was nice to be in a room full of people that were all just happy in being there. As he soaked in the syrupy, warm feeling, he thought back to the Christmases of years passed and wondered how he ever felt even slightly at home in a mansion full of arrogant, shallow snobs. He supposed he didn’t, remembering the empty feeling that never seemed to leave him, no matter how many of his family’s awful friends drank their way into Christmas morning. This was better, infinitely better.

“Hey,” a voice whispered in his ear. When he turned to see Patrick, his arms were up and around his neck before he could stop himself.

“Are you sure you have time for me, given all your adoring fans are waiting?”

“For you, always. And Alexis offered to take over anyway,” he said, nodding towards where Alexis had taken Patrick place, reading to the kids and also a rather awkward looking but smiling Stevie. Kissing David gently, he added, “You’re here.”

“I am.”

“What changed your mind?”

“You.”

“Me?” he asked, frowning.

“Yes. Kind of. And me, too. I started thinking about how there are people with literally nothing. And about how, even when we lost everything, my family and I didn’t need to worry about a roof over our heads, or where our next meal would come from, mostly because my Dad is bad at giving gifts, but also because the people of this town helped us when they didn’t have to. Even when we were kind of mean to them,” he said quickly, pausing to catch his breath. “Then I thought about how you and your family haven’t always had it easy, but none of you would ever even think of not sharing what you have. And I want to be like that. Maybe not exactly like that, but more like that. I want to be the kind of person you’re proud of. That you’re all proud of.”

“We are,” Patrick murmured softly, hands squeezing David’s hips. “So proud, you don’t need to change for that.”

“Not change,” he said, a small smile threatening his face. “Just become an even more elevated version of myself. Maybe work on my stubborn streak.”

“Don’t you dare; that’s my favourite streak,” he kissed him again, sweet and perfect. “Did you even go back to the toy store?”

“Yes, I insisted Stevie drive us,” he nodded. “Also, I may have spent what I was going to use to buy your Christmas presents to buy toys for the… littles ones.”

“David,” he breathed, but he wasn’t mad, he was smiling and looking pretty fond. His hand skimmed up over David’s chest from his hip, stopping right in the centre. “I can feel it.”

“Feel what?”

“I can feel it growing three sizes.”

“Okay, we were having a nice moment,” he said, pushing Patrick’s hands away.

“Would you like to carry that on and read to the kids?” he asked, not even trying to hold back his laughter when David shot him a terrified look. “Joking. I think Twyla could do with a hand pouring hot chocolate.”

“That I can do,” he said, starting towards Twyla.

“David?”

“Hmm?”

“I love you,” he said simply, proudly, as if they weren’t in a room full of people.

“I love you, too,” he said back, simply, proudly, not caring if the whole world heard.


	20. Twentieth of December

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tragedy strikes Schitt's Creek ... and that's the only summary you'll get from me.

“I just wish I could have done something to stop it,” Patrick sighed, shaking his head.

“I know, it wasn’t your fault,” Stevie said. “It was just a freak accident.”

“Yeah, but planning a funeral is the last thing anyone wants this time of year.”

“I know, but we’re giving her a good send-off.”

“Oh, my God, would the two of you just shut the fuck up?” David whined loudly.

The four of them – David, Patrick, Stevie, and Alexis – were stood in a circle in the Motel’s garden. If you could even call it that; he seriously doubted anyone would mistake the barren land around the Motel where they occasionally had barbeques for a garden, but that wasn’t really the point. The point was, the four of them were all dressed in black, admittedly not something so out of the ordinary for David, stood around a shoebox next to the Motel, in mourning. Apparently.

“Would you show some respect, David?” Alexis hissed, hitting his arm with her claw. “A tiny lady is dead.”

“You weren’t even part of this,” he pointed out angrily.

“If I wasn’t ‘part of this’ who do you think put her on the roof of Patrick’s car?” she asked, holding her hand up for a high five from Stevie, which she, miraculously, received.

“So, you’re the killer?”

“It was an  _ accident,  _ David.”

Charlene’s tragic, sudden death had been unfortunate if not bound to happen eventually; Alexis put her on top of Patrick’s car whilst on her run, hoping to catch them out first thing, Patrick and David, too busy talking about the toy drive and where they would eat later, hadn’t seen her. Patrick drove forward, sending the angel flying, and reversed suddenly when David realised he had left his bag inside, running her over and crushing her well beyond repair.

“Can we just get on with the service?” Patrick asked.

“Yes. David, say a few words,” Stevie said.

“No,” he shook his head. When they all just watched, waiting, he lamented, “Charlene lived just a short life of several hundred years,” he said. “She provided at least a few hours of entertainment and was creepy as hell. She will be sorely missed.”

“That was beautiful,” Stevie said, pulling her black flannel tighter around her against the cold.

“Hmm, from the heart,” Patrick agreed with a smirk. The little shit.

“Should we go and drink Dad’s whiskey, as a tribute?”

“Alexis, it is one o’clock in the afternoon,” Stevie said.

“Yeah, we’re on our lunch break,” David gasped. “Of course we should.”


	21. Twenty First of December

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some surprise visits have Patrick feeling content.

“Hey, will you grab a box of the tinted moisturisers?”

“No.”

“Why not?” Patrick asked, frowning.

“Because I have to stay right here for the next four minutes,” David said, not even bothering to look up from where he was perched up on the counter, engrossed in his phone.

“Why?” he asked, folding his arms across his chest and eyeing his fiancé.

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Are you serious?”

“Deadly,” he said simply, finally looking up and smiling sweetly at him.

“Fine, I’ll get it,” he huffed.

“No, you also have to stay here.”

“For the next four minutes?” he asked, annoyance beginning to creep into his voice.

“At the very least.”

“Is that really all the information I’m getting?”

“Yep.”

“Perfect,” he breathed, giving up on both the tinted moisturisers and his staring contest with David and going to the back of the store to dust off the stained-glass windows. “Whenever you’re ready to stop being weird, please let me know.”

“I will.”

They worked in relative silence for a few minutes. Well, Patrick worked, the only thing David did was drive him insane with the tapping of his fingers on his phone. He was about to ask him something snarky about having something to share with the class, when the bell dinged above the door and he begrudgingly had to plaster on his customer service smile.

“Welcome to Rose Apothecary,” he heard David say behind him, an uncharacteristically cheery lilt to his voice.

“Thank you, sweetheart,” came the reply, in a sweet, warm voice that Patrick didn’t even need to turn around to know; would know it anywhere, could pick it out in a crowd, heard it in the hallows of his mind whenever he needed home. “Sweet boy,” she said, smiling when he turned to look at her.

“Hi,” he breathed, crossing the store quickly and pulling her in so tight she groaned with the force of it. “Sorry.”

“Don’t even think about it,” she said, tightening her grip on him when he tried to pull away.

“Hey,” he said, smiling at his Dad, who was shaking David’s hand.

“Hey, kid.”

“You did this?” he turned to David, his mother’s hand clutching his own.

“Maybe.”

“You, you’re,” he stopped, smiling, and hoping that David would know what he meant. He guessed he did if the little smile on his face was any indication. “I didn’t think I would see you for the holidays.”

“He’s been moping, just a little,” David teased.

“So has his mother,” Dad said, pulling Patrick into a tight hug and doing that clap on the back that guys do, which was slightly lame but also perfect. “Good to see you.”

“Yeah, you too,” he said, disbelieving. “How long have you been planning this?”

“Since we spent the weekend with them.”

“That was six weeks ago!”

“Why are you so shocked?”

“You’re not known for your secret keeping.”

“This is this the second time he’s down this,” his mother pointed out.

“Yeah, Patrick, this is the second time I’ve done this,” David grinned. “And I’ve also made a reservation for the three of you for lunch at the Café, so, secrets kept.”

“Just the three of us?” his Dad asked, eyebrows raised.

“Apparently it’s bad for business to just close the store in the middle of the day,” David shrugged.

“I see; he’s working you hard.”

“Exactly,” David nodded deeply, smirking. “Go to lunch, I insist.”

After his parents gave in and agreed to go to lunch sans David, they ambled out of the store, his Mom patting David’s knee as she passed him. Patrick stopped in the doorway, leaving his parents waiting on the sidewalk. He turned, striding back to David and jumping up to kiss him quickly.

“You’re amazing.”

“I know, you’ll have to think of some very imaginative way to thank me later,” he said, staring down at Patrick’s lips until he got the hint and kissed him again.

“I will,” he grinned. “But, until then, will carrot cake for lunch work?”

“Certainly, a start.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Usually, David hated working alone on slow days; the minutes tended to feel like hours and the hours like days, but today he was happy in the knowledge that Patrick was getting some quality time with his parents. The fact that his job well done had led to a satisfying feeling that left him grinning a little was simply a nice bonus.

The bell dinged for the first time since the Brewers had left a little over an hour before, and when David turned to greet a customer, he was met with the sight of Marcy coming through the door.

“You on your own?” he asked, taking her scarf from her after she took it off and laying it carefully over the countertop.

“They started talking with your Dad about baseball, so I excused myself.”

“Oh, been there,” he said smiling a little stiffly. He didn’t want to feel awkward, he liked Marcy very much, but he realised as he stood uncomfortably against the counter that they had never actually been left alone before. They spoke on the phone, sure, but that was different; he could make some excuse and hang up if he needed to. He couldn’t do that now, not without being incredibly rude and evoking the wrath of Patrick after abandoning his mother in their store.

“I thought I would come over and see if you needed any help with anything.”

“Oh, that’s very nice of you but you don’t have to do anything.”

“I don’t mind, I would rather keep busy,” she assured, smiling. “I could finish Patrick’s dusting.”

“That would very helpful, thank you.”

“Did you enjoy your cookies?” she asked after dusting quietly for a moment.

“I did. I heard you helped.”

“Just a little, he was doing fine on his own, but you know sometimes he just needs a little nudge.”

“I do.”

“He mentioned that you might appreciate something chocolate, so there might be a cake at the Motel for you.”

“Those are some of my favourite words, thank you so much.”

They settled into a quiet, and David hated it. He hated the silence, he hated feeling like he needed to find something to say to fill it, he hated feeling awkward and second-guessing himself. Marcy probably didn’t think anything of it, she was probably fine with a minute's peace, but David couldn’t stop himself from thinking that he was doing this all wrong, that maybe he’s messing this up without meaning to. Which was dramatic, he knew that, but a little voice in his head had a nasty little habit of comparing himself to Rachel, that maybe Marcy wished she was here instead of David, and he couldn’t stand that.

“Am I,” he started to ask, stopping himself when embarrassment started to make his skin flush.

“Are you what?” Marcy prompted sweetly.

“It’s dumb, never mind.”

“Are you sure?”

“No.”

“So, ask,” she said, stopping her dusting in favour of looking at David.

“Am I doing okay?” he asked, pulling at a thread at the hem of his skirt, hating himself a little bit for even thinking about asking.

“What do you mean?”

“I, uh, I’ve never really done the, like, meet the parents thing before,” he said, suddenly engrossed in looking at a scuff on his sneakers. “So, this is all kind of new to me, and I’m never really sure that I’m doing it right.”

“Sweetheart,” she said warmly, walking over and placing her hand on top of his. “You are doing wonderfully.”

“I am?” he asked, throat tight, voice a little thick.

“Yes,” she smiled. “You’re thoughtful, and you plan all these lovely things for Patrick, and you’re never too busy for a phone call,” she squeezed his hand, and David was endlessly fond of her. “And even if you didn’t do those things, you make him so very happy, and that was something I worried I might never see again.”

“I don’t think you need to worry about him anymore.”

“No, but I did,” she said sweet smile just a tad sadder. “When you invited us here the first time, I didn’t know what to expect.”

“You got quite a shock.”

“I did,” she agreed quickly, and David would panic at the swiftness of her reply if she wasn’t beaming. “I had spent months in knots thinking about him alone in some town we’d never heard of, hardly ever even talking to him on the phone, and when I did, barely getting a word out of him,” she shook her head, eyeing David thoughtfully, “so you can imagine my relief when we were welcomed into this town by people who really didn’t have to open their arms to us, to find that it turns out I wasn’t losing a son, I was gaining one.”

“Oh,” he breathed, because really what was he meant to say to that? “That’s a really lovely thing to say.”

“I mean it, I can’t wait for the two of you to get married,” she said. “Clint, too.”

“Really?”

“You should hear him bragging about the two of you and the store, he just isn’t so good at actually saying it to the people he’s bragging about,” she chuckled. “Which is one of the reasons why I left them to their baseball talk; they haven’t always been great at bonding.”

“Is the other reason you might start pulling your hair out if you have to hear them talk about the Blue Jays for one more second?”

“God, yes.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

With talk of baseball done, Mr. Rose left Patrick and his father alone in their booth. Patrick, honestly, couldn’t remember the last time he felt this content. The engagement, probably, given that’s the happiest Patrick’s ever been. But his parents weren’t there, and it had been quickly overshadowed by Moira’s… stuff. This was a different kind of content, though; this wasn’t bright, overpowering, breathtaking as the engagement had been. This was quieter, steadier, a sweet completing feeling that threatened to well tears in his eyes. It had him smiling dopily, an eyes squinting, teeth bearing, giddy kind of smile, his cheeks aching with it.

He realised, his grin growing, that he’d seen that exact smile on his Dad’s face, particularly when he was around his mother.

“Why the face?” his Dad teased.

“No, nothing,” he chuckled. “Glad you’re here.”

“Me too.”


	22. Twenty Second of December

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Patrick enjoys time with his family, he gets some unexpected advice.

There had been moments, lots of moments, after Patrick moved away that he genuinely thought he might never be close with his parents again. When he ran away after calling off his engagement, he had barely said goodbye to them, unable to look them in the eye and come up with any more excuses as to why his relationship had failed again and why he was so unhappy. Not that they ever even knew he was unhappy, he plastered on a fake grin and pretended everything was fine when they would talk and managed to keep up the facade when he visited every weekend. That was really what hurt, what made everything feel so overwhelming and unbearable when he first moved; they were so close, he spoke to them almost every day and saw them at least twice a week, and he had never consciously kept anything from them.

Until, of course, he was knowingly keeping something from them, something so big, so altering that he scarcely knew what to do with it. So, he made excuses to get out of phone calls and Facetimes and visits, he kept his texting to the minimum, and he hated himself for all of it. He kept it up until he was sure there would be no relationship left, barely able to look at himself in the mirror, let alone face his remarkable parents.

David changed that, like David changed everything; he made everything okay and burst the damn, creating somewhere safe for Patrick to let all of himself out, to show his parents exactly who he is. In ripping the band-aid off, he allowed for a relationship with his parents that would be new, yet completely familiar.

And if the last surprise visit didn’t go to plan, this one certainly did, and as he watched his parents chat with his fiancé in their apartment, eating cake and sipping hot chocolate, everything felt exactly right.

“If you had passed your baking skills onto your son, I think we’d be married already. Or, like, instantly,” David said, prompting a laugh from Mom.

“I tried, but everything he touched seemed to just burst into flames.”

“So I’ll have to be the cook?” David asked, face scrunching up.

“We’ll starve,” Patrick smirked. “Also, I wasn’t that bad.”

“No, no, of course not,” his Dad said, sharing a smile with David.

“Speaking of the two of you getting married,” Mom said, making Patrick get a few butterflies he would never admit to. “Any new plans?”

“If you want to show her your journal,” Patrick said, smiling when David’s hand came up to grip his sleeve, “show her your journal.”

“Hang on,” David smiled, already out of his chair and darting over to dig his journal out of his bag.

“We’ll wash the dishes while you grab it,” his Mom said, patting Dad’s knee to get him moving.

“Thanks,” he said, and when he caught his Dad’s eye he added, “you won’t want to get in the middle of them.”

“Got it,” he chuckled.

When David flopped onto the couch, curling his legs under him, where Dad had just been sitting, Patrick stood to lean over the coffee table and kiss his cheek.

“What was that for?” David murmured.

“Have I thanked you enough?” he asked quietly, so quietly he was sure his parents wouldn’t hear them as they washed.

“Last night,” he breathed. “Quite enthusiastically.”

“No,” he chuckled. “For everything. I didn’t think it would be like this, and now they’re here, and we’re planning a wedding with them, and it’s great. So, thank you.”

“You don’t need to thank me.”

“Well, I want to,” he said, taking his seat again. “Every day. For the rest of my life.”

“Okay,” David smiled, beautiful and gentle and beautiful, so, so beautiful. He dropped his gaze after probably too long, opening his journal to a page covered in pictures of flowers.

“I like the roses,” his Mom said when she sat next to David, leaning in to get a better look. “Very fitting.”

“Me too. But the ones I like are hard to come by around here,” David sighed. “And on our budget.”

“You can blow the budget on flowers if you want to get married in jeans and t-shirts at the Elmdale community centre.”

“Or we could just sell some organs,” David suggested, not for the first time.

“It’s going to be lovely, no matter how much you spend,” his Mom told them softly. “Though it will be even more beautiful if you do it at this manor house.”

“Slightly out of our budget,” David said begrudgingly.

“So why do you keep the picture?” Patrick asked.

“I just like to look at it.”

It was then the two wedding planners span into a conversation about the grand staircases and rolling hills of Ashbury Manor, leaving Patrick and his father to share fond looks and a more muted conversation.

“The two of you still want to come to Open Mic?”

“Ugh,” David groaned, not looking away from his journal or even pausing his tirade of opinions on folding chairs.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” his Dad said. “I overheard people talking about it at the Café yesterday, they seemed quite excited.”

“Yeah, it’s a little last minute, but that’s usually how we do things.”

“I can imagine,” he smiled. “Can I offer you some advice?” he asked quietly.

“Uh, sure.”

“Don’t be too budget conscious with the wedding,” he said, looking at Patrick seriously. “I know it’s important to save, I get that, but when your mother and I got married, we did it in the church with ten people. It was great, but sometimes I wish we’d made more of a fuss, made it a little more… us?”

“You do?”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “You, uh,” he paused, and Patrick guessed by his expression it was to gear himself up a little. “You getting here has been a long time coming; it’s a big deal.”

“Yeah,” he said, grinning just a little. “It has.”

“Make the most of it, is what I’m saying,” his Dad patted Patrick’s knee as he gave him his advice. “Enjoy it.”

“I will,” he said.

“Does that mean our honeymoon can be six weeks in Europe?” David asked, because of course he heard Patrick agreeing to spend more money on their wedding.

“In your dreams.”


	23. Twenty Third of December

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Open Mic Night at Rose Apothecary, and David has some feelings, as traditions dictates.
> 
> (This chapter is a little late in the day because I couldn't get it right, and I'm still not so happy with it but thought I'd post anyway!)

When Patrick had first mentioned a Christmas Open Mic Night, David had been doubtful, obviously. He’d made some excuses about it being too last minute, too close to Christmas, too much planning, but Patrick had been so enthusiastic about it, he eventually lamented.

“Fine,” he had finally said. “But I’m not helping with anything.”

“Really? I thought you might want to do,” he stopped, fixing David with a very serious look. “The Number.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Your mother would love it. So, would mine, for that matter.”

“That was a one-time thing,” he had snapped, probably a little fiercer than necessary.

“Hey,” Patrick held up his hands in surrender, smiling easily. “I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to; I promise.”

So, they had agreed; Patrick would plan, David would drink mulled wine, and everyone would be out of the store by eleven.

That was until the store was full of people, and David was full of wine, and Patrick was being Patrick, wandering around the room, charming everyone and even pulling a laugh out of Ronnie. David watched as his fiancé moved and, in an act he would later blame on the booze, allowed himself to be a little mesmerised. 

“The two of you are very popular,” a voice said from beside him, making him jump.

“Oh, I think it’s mostly your son’s doing,” David told Clint, eyes flashing back to Patrick briefly.

“I don’t know,” he said. “People have a lot of nice things to say about you.”

“Really?”

“Really,” he smiled kindly, nodding across the room. “And the, uh, is it rude to call her the abrupt lady?”

“No, I think that’s a very polite way of putting it.”

“Either way, she even told me how much she likes it here.”

“Well, I couldn’t have done it without Patrick,” he said, knowing that it wasn’t true when it came to Ronnie, but the rest of it? Definitely.

“That’s a very nice thing to say, David,” he said gently. “I think the show might be about to start.”

“God,” he breathed. “I mean, can’t wait.”

Clint laughed and patted him on the shoulder as Patrick climbed onto the little stage area, guitar in hand. The guitar being another compromise; Patrick had wanted to play the accordion. As he tuned his guitar, Marcy joined them near the counter, smiling and a little red-cheeked.

“Good evening, everybody,” Patrick said into the microphone, grinning brightly and eliciting cheers from the crowd. “Thank you for joining us again at Rose Apothecary so close to Christmas. Are you all drunk enough to not care about how off-key I am?”

“Almost!” Stevie shouted from the front row.

“Great,” Patrick laughed. “Oh, it can’t be,” he said, bringing his hand up over his eyes and squinting, “why, it’s television’s Moira Rose.”

“Oh, God,” David said, rolling his eyes. The thought of Patrick’s promise quelled any unease he might have felt, and he even shared a laugh across the room with his sister when she caught his eye. Touching Marcy’s shoulder gently, he told the two of them, “I’m so sorry for what you’re about to witness.”

“That’s television’s mother-in-law to you,” she cheered after joining Patrick on stage. She grabbed a microphone, and David tried his best to prepare himself.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Number, he could admit, was kind of funny when it didn’t involve him. Cheesy and cringey, sure, but it was fun to watch Patrick make a fool of himself for once.

“She’s quite something, your mother,” Marcy had whispered during the second verse of O Come All Ye Faithful.

“So is your son.”

Surprisingly, his Mom only stayed for two numbers, with the promise of an encore later if they were lucky. Patrick had stayed on though, and after a call of ‘ _ No Tina!’  _ from Ronnie, he just grinned, his fingers strumming the opening bars of All I Want For Christmas Is You. Of course. David felt the same sweet warmth spread through him as he did the first time Patrick had sung to him half a lifetime ago, so when Patrick had kept shyly meeting his eye and Marcy’s hand resting gently on his arm, it was almost too much. Almost.

“That was wonderful, sweetheart,” Marcy said after Patrick had taken his bows and introduced Twyla on stage.

“Thanks,” he said, a little bashful as he kissed his Mother’s cheek. “You’re next, you know,” he told his Dad.

“Gosh.”

“Can you sing?” David asked.

“Like Dean Martin,” Marcy answered before her husband could deny it.

“How about next year you sing with Patrick, so we never have to witness what my Mom just did again?”

They laughed and refocused their attention on the stage as Twyla started to sing, her voice as pretty as David remembered. Patrick detangled himself from his Mom and took a few steps back, leaning into David, who instantaneously wrapped an arm around his shoulders.

“Did you like the song?” he asked, voice low and right in David’s ear, his arm snaking around his waist.

“Do you really have to ask?”

“No, but I’d still like to hear the answer.”

“It was, I mean, I,” he stuttered, earning a shit-eating grin from Patrick that he absolutely could not allow. “The song choice was a little obvious, and it was proceeded by something truly horrifying.”

“But other than that?” Patrick chuckled, voice playful and happy and making it so hard for David to be anything but truly joyful.

“Other than that,” he sighed. “It was perfect.”

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As the night wore on, the crowd thinned, and the wine supply dwindled, leaving nothing but family in the store.

“I think I learned some new cuss words tonight,” Stevie said, flopping into a folding chair and sighing. “Which is really saying something.”

“I know; who knew Bob had such a dark side?” Patrick grinned.

“I always suspected,” David said.

The three of them were sat in a circle with the four parents and Alexis and Ted, all of them tired and aching after a long night but enjoying each other too much to go home. The evening had been a success even if they hadn’t made much money out of it; Bob read his terrifying poetry, Alexis grabbed Stevie and Patrick by the hands and forced them into singing songs from Cabaret, and his Mom treated them – her words – by closing the show, and as David watched he realised that he always forgot how much he enjoyed these nights.

“Happy Christmas Eve,” Marcy said, patting Patrick’s knee as she spoke.

“Oh yeah,” Patrick turned his head to look up at the clock, which had just passed midnight. “Happy Christmas Eve.”

“Quick,” Alexis shrilled, lifting her phone up as she spoke. “Family Christmas Eve selfie, all of us.”

“Alexis, the bags under my eyes.”

“Quiet, you’re perfect,” Patrick said, probably a little tipsy but making David blush anyway.

“Everybody in,” Alexis said, shimmying her shoulders. They all crowded in, closer than David would have preferred, and smiled up at the camera. Patrick pulled on David’s sleeve until he gave in and perched on Patrick’s lap, making room for Marcy and Clint, with his own parents leaning in behind them. “Okay, Johnny, the camera is up here.”

“Oh,” his Dad said, looking up from wherever he was looking.

“Stevie, could you smile, just this once?” she asked.

“No.”

“Ugh.”

“Alexis, you have to let Mummy see these photographs before they’re sent to anyone. You remember what happened after your 21st; the press had a festival that day.”

“There will be no press,” she whined.

“And if that former gymnast turned go-go dancer David used to date asks for my phone number again, you have to delete it immediately,” Stevie told her.

“You know what? You four, stay,” she said, pointing at David, Patrick, Marcy, and Clint, eyes massive with cartoonish rage. “The rest of you, get out.”

The others grumbled their complaints but gave in when Alexis started getting pushy. David, inwardly, cringed, though he knew he had no reason to when he saw Clint and Marcy laughing.

“Is it always like this?” Marcy asked.

“Oh, yes,” Patrick said, nodding and smiling and gorgeous. “I’ve learned that sometimes it’s best to just smile for the camera.”

So, that’s what they did, and just a few weeks later the picture of the for of them laughing in their store, David in Patrick’s lap, Marcy’s palm resting over their joined hands, looking and feeling happier than any of them could ever remember, was framed and on their fireplace.

And that’s where it stayed, on every mantelpiece in every home they would ever have, right where it belonged, as a reminder that sometimes, sometimes it does work out.


	24. Twenty Fourth of December

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The party comes, and David has a lot of feelings.

Upon learning that his Dad planned on making the Christmas party a tradition, David had started planning as soon as the new year came, unable to allow his name to be tied to anything less than perfect. Last year had ended up being kind of nice, but this year the decoration would be less awful, the wine would be actually paid for, and he would have more than a day to pick his outfit.

In spite of having time to prepare, this year he had another worry; inviting Patrick’s parents. It wasn’t that he was particularly worried about spending time with them himself, but the holidays can bring out the absolute worst in people, and he worried that his family would be too much, too loud or weird, too different from the wholesome Brewers.

He didn’t need to worry, as it turned out, because when he and Patrick arrived at the Motel bright and, ugh, early, Marcy and Clint were already out front waiting for them.

“We thought you might need a hand,” Clint said.

“I’m not sure you want to be around David when he’s decorating.”

“I warned you that if you tried to put any more tinsel on your tree, words would be had, so,” he said, bringing his fist up to knock on his parent’s door, only to have it open before he could.

“Good morning, dear,” his mother said, waving them. “Oh, and good morning, Brewers.”

“Where’s Dad?” David asked as they said their hellos.

“He’s on a last-minute supply run with our Stevie, said they should be back after lunch.”

“What? No, he’s meant to be helping.”

“I am just the messenger, David,” she said, grabbing her bed from the bed and starting towards the door.

“And where are you going?”

“Oh, David, you know I would stay and supervise but Jocelyn has roped me into a final Jazzagals rehearsal.”

“So, you’re both just going to turn up and take the credit?”

“See you all later,” was all she said before closing the door behind her.

“Is it too late to call off the wedding and have the two of you adopt me?”

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To everyone’s surprise, including his own, David was actually enjoying himself.

If anyone asked, he would put it down to the fact that this year he didn’t have to decorate the Motel like fifteen minutes before guests arrived, or that this year he had his espresso machine, or that this year he started drinking wine early, but in reality, he was just enjoying the company he was in. Which was weird, seeing as Roland had called him Dave at least seven thousand times, and Alexis had got herself in a tizzy because she apparently _forgot_ to buy gifts for anyone, and his Mother had spilled her wine all over Patrick’s white shirt. In spite of all of that, he literally could not think of a single place he would rather be.

It helped that Patrick had had to walk around in just his undershirt since taking off his probably ruined shirt to soak; getting to thirst over his forearms and exposed collarbones like he imagined people did during the Victorian times didn’t hurt, he supposed.

“You’ve been watching me,” Patrick said quietly when he appeared next to David.

“I have not.”

“No?” he teased.

“No. And if I had, we’re getting married; I’m allowed to ogle.”

“I said watching, you came up with ogling all on your own,” he kissed David, smiling and buoyant.

“Maybe you should be less concerned about whether or not I’m ogling, and more on saving your Mother from Roland,” he suggested haughtily.

“Oh, God; he already started telling my Dad about that time he came to the store after hours and saw us -”

“You need to stop him right now,” he said, pushing Patrick towards Roland.

As he watched as Patrick politely divert Roland away from poor Marcy, David perched himself on the edge of his parent's bed, grabbing the bottle of white his Mom keeps in her side table and pouring himself a healthy glass. After a minute of watching Stevie snort-laugh at whatever Twyla was whispering to her, of watching bounce little Roland on his knee as he happily talked with Jocelyn, of watching his Mother spin a few tales for Marcy and Patrick, even watching Roland probably tell Alexis and Ted about what he witnessed after hours, his Dad joined him on the bed.

“It’s nice,” he said as he sat next to David.

“It is,” David said, smiling and watching Patrick talk to their Mothers. “Better with adequate time to plan and land on a theme.”

“Yes, okay, David,” his Dad nodded. “But what I actually meant was, it’s nice to see you happy.”

His Dad patted his knee a little awkwardly, and for once, neither of them needed to say anything else.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the hours that passed, four people told him how lovely the room looked, how well decorated and _tasteful_ it was. It was a coincidence, David decided, that all of these people had just finished talking to Patrick when they approached him.

“Everyone’s very welcoming,” Marcy said.

“Welcoming is an extremely polite way of putting it.”

“Stop it,” she said, touching his arm. “I’m glad we’re here,” she told him, not looking at him but at her son, “and I’m glad he is, too.”

He joined her in her looking and found a man so warm in a room so filled with light that he couldn’t look for long, but found it too hard to look away.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Later, as they settled in bed, cuddled together under a bundle of blankets, David watched with a smile as Patrick struggled to keep his eyes open.

“Tired?” he asked softly.

“Hmm, long day,” he curled in closer, tucking his face into David’s neck, pressing his icy nose against his skin.

“You do that on purpose,” he grumbled as he tried to pull away from his fiancé’s cold face. He felt his smile against the underside of his jaw, and quickly forgot his annoyance. “Have you enjoyed spending time with your parents?”

“I have,” he said, voice soft and sleepy.

“I did good?”

“You did very good,” he kissed David’s neck twice, before nuzzling his face in closer.

“Are you,” he paused for a second, a little unsure. “Are you happy?”

“What?” Patrick lifted his head, looking down at David, confused. “Of course I am. I’m happier than I’ve ever been.”

“Good,” David smiled, reaching up to touch Patrick’s face gently. “Good.”

“Why?”

“No reason, just coming up to the end of the year, a good time to think about things,” he said, his thumb stroking Patrick’s cheek lightly. “I just want to make sure that you’re as happy as I am.”

“That’s very sweet of you,” he said, leaning down to kiss him slowly. “I’m so happy, you don’t need to worry.”

“I wasn’t worrying,” he murmured, sighing contentedly when Patrick started kissing down his neck. “Much.”

“Hey,” Patrick said, sitting up suddenly. “You know what we’ll be next year?”

“What?”

“Married,” he said simply.

“Oh,” he breathed. “Oh, yeah.”

“I can’t wait,” he whispered, kissing him again. “It’s going to be an amazing year, David Rose.”

“I can’t really imagine it can get much better,” he admitted quietly.

In all honesty, he had been thinking that since they met; through every stage of their relationship, from meeting to becoming business partners to being friends and then to more and more and more until they got engaged, he could never quite comprehend that he could possibly fit any more happiness inside of him. It had scared him, just a little, the thought of being full to bursting with absolute joy, sure that he would eventually have to watch it all fall apart right in front of his eyes.

That fear was long forgotten, though, every day with Patrick bringing a new level of certainty that this is exactly as it’s meant to be, that they can have this and not be scared. It was nice, freeing, made him feel a little bit invincible.

“Meant to be,” he whispered softly without really meaning to, after Patrick had returned to his spot on David’s chest.

“Hmm?” Patrick asked, barely awake.

“No, nothing.

“Mmm, okay,” Patrick said, voice almost gone but perfect. “Merry Christmas, David.”

“Merry Christmas, Patrick.”

He kissed the top of Patrick’s head and closed his eyes, shocked, as he often was, that just when he thought he couldn’t possibly cram in any more happiness, he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a warning that the final chapter will probably be up on the 26th because I think there might be something happening tomorrow??? Who knows????


	25. Twenty Fifth of December

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is SO late, but apparently Christmas and New Year can keep you busy? Who knew?
> 
> This is the last one! I've had so much fun writing these little fics, and the comments have been amazing and made me so happy, so thank you for reading all of this! 
> 
> Happy New Year!!

After last year’s… debacle, the Rose family had decided to not give each other any gifts this year. Which David was fine with, honestly; their apartment lacked any kind of storage space and had already been filled to bursting with all of their joint stuff, and given that Stevie had been dropping hints for weeks about needing the extra room at the Motel given how frequently she and Dad managed to fill it to max capacity, he figured the step in closet would soon be getting a much needed facelift. And, honestly, his family lacked the taste and funds to buy David anything he would actually want.

So, it was all fine. Could the wedding budget benefit from one of the cheques his parents used to give him? Maybe, but his – their, their wedding would be beautiful no matter the money, so it was fine.

Bizarrely, he awoke Christmas morning from exactly that dream; he was dressed in a beautiful, custom, perfectly tailored, unfairly priced suit, stood at the foot of the sweeping staircase of the Rose Mansion, accepting a cheque from his Mother – who was wearing a white dress, for some reason – and everything should have been perfect. Should have been, because there was no Patrick, no Schitt’s Creek, no wedding, just meaningless gifts, meaningless friends, meaningless relationships, and when he woke with a start, David wondered how he could have ever deluded himself into thinking he was anything close to happy.

So, you can imagine his relief when he rolled over and into the welcome heat of Patrick’s body curled against his.

“Patrick,” he murmured, poking his fiancé almost gently. “Wake up.”

“Why?” he grumbled, peaceful features twisting with confusion.

“Christmas,” he said, smiling when Patrick’s squinted his eyes open.

“Not yet,” he said, closing his eyes and tugging David’s against him.

“Okay,” he said.

He closed his eyes and forgot any pointless worries about needing anything else; this was just perfect on its own.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“So, I know you said that I wasn’t allowed to buy you anything else.”

“That really doesn’t sound like me.”

“But,” Patrick continued, ignoring his ridiculous man with his ridiculous bed head, “in my defence, I got this before I made any agreements.”

After their early start, they managed to sleep for another hour, though their second start was still earlier than David usually woke. Even on workdays, but that’s an argument Patrick would have another day – probably many other days. Anyway, they woke up and Patrick made coffee, giving David time to brush his teeth and grab the present he had been hiding under the bed. When Patrick returned a few minutes later, coffee mug in each hand, he wanted to burn David’s lit up expression when he noticed the wrapped gift tucked under his arm into his memory. He had managed to convince David to at least drink some of their coffee before opening gifts, but that agreement didn’t last long.

“I’m sure I can forgive you then,” David said, his hands in fists to stop himself from snatching the present, Patrick assumed.

“Merry Christmas,” he grinned, lamenting and handing David his gift with a kiss on his cheek.

“Thank you,” he said sweetly. He wasted no time in tearing of the paper – garish and bright blue and probably killing David just a little bit as he valiantly made no comment on it – and only used his teeth for a second.

“I noticed yours had gotten pretty full, with the wedding planning, I thought you might be needing a new one soon,” he explained when David pulled out a new black journal, plain except for the _D.R_ printed on the cover. “And given that you’ve started trying to stick in more pages over the last couple weeks, I think maybe I was right.”

“You were,” he said, leaning in and kissing Patrick quickly. “Thank you, this is a very tasteful font, too.”

“Learning from the best. But,” he said, leaning over and reaching under the bed to grab what he had hidden under the bed. “I got myself one, too,” he handed David the journal, the matching one, with the matching font, and the matching second initial, “with the hope that maybe you would be okay with giving me your name.”

“Oh.”

“Along with whatever you have wrapped there, obviously.”

“Shut up,” he breathed, dropping the journals and kissing Patrick hard. “You want that?”

“Yes,” he said surely, not needing any more time to think about it.

“Oh,” he said again, tears in his eyes and on his cheeks. “I didn’t,” he started, but stopped.

“I, I don’t have to.”

“No! No, I want you to,” he said softly. “I just didn’t think anyone would want my name anymore.”

“David,” he sighed, hand coming up to cup David’s cheek gently waiting until his teary eyes met his. “I want all of you, everything, I promise.”

“That’s – that’s awful because now my gift is, like, crap.”

“I told you,” Patrick said gently. “I have you, I don’t need anything.”

“Oh, my God; just shut up,” he said, laughing thickly and shaking his head. “Just shut up, you’re making it worse; stop being nice to me.”

“Okay; your hair looks like a skunk in the morning.”

“Oh, my God.”

“You told me to stop being nice,” he said, smiling when David’s glare didn’t match his grin. “Give me my present.”

“It’s not much,” he said quietly, holding it out for Patrick.

He could feel David’s eyes him as he tore off the wrapping, and he saw him biting his lip when he chanced a glance up. When the paper was gone, he was greeted with the back of a frame and, expecting a photograph, he found something that was so much better.

“It’s the ticket, from -”

“The day we met,” he finished, not needing a reminder but enjoying the memory of being in Ray’s office and finding the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. “B13.”

“I thought it was such a good idea but now it-” Patrick interrupted him again, not with words this time but with his lips, and kissed him until he stopped trying to argue with him. “You like it?”

“It’s perfect,” he said, lips still almost touching David’s. “You’re perfect.”

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A few hours and many tears later, Patrick pulled into the Motel’s parking lot, glad that what was left of the snow had melted and he didn’t need to worry about David having a heart attack as he sat in the passenger seat, pressing his imaginary break, as Patrick drove. They had all agreed on a pretty lowkey Christmas; Alexis and Ted were bringing the food over to the Motel, though Patrick assumed Alexis wouldn’t be doing much cooking, Johnny and Moira would be hosting given that their room was already decorated, and the two of them, with Stevie obviously, just had to show up. With booze.

“Are we sure your parents don’t want anything?” he asked over the roof of his car, probably for the thousandth time. “I don’t want to go in there and find a pile of presents.”

“Have you met them?” David said, rolling his eyes and grabbing his back off the backseat. “The four of us made a deal; no gifts.”

“Fine,” he said, holding his hand out for David’s as they made their way over to his parents’ room.

“Given that all yours wanted was some books, I think this is probably the easiest Christmas ever.”

“That’s the spirit.”

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When the food had been demolished, and most of the wine had been drunk, Johnny appeared behind Patrick and patted him on the shoulder.

“Could I borrow you for a minute?”

“Sure,” he said, pushing himself away from the table and following Johnny into the adjoining room. “Everything okay?”

“Oh, yeah, yeah. Nothing to worry about, I just wanted to give you something,” he said, holding out a small box and handing it to him. “I know we said no gifts but, to be fair to me, I didn’t have to buy these.”

The these he was referring to turned out to be two silver cufflinks, square and simple with tiny leaves decorating them. They looked old, or at least oldish, but Patrick would have known they were Johnny Rose’s without needing to be told.

“I didn’t know if you might be needing some cufflinks for the big day. You don’t have to wear them; I already offered them to David and he said something about aesthetics and I took that as a no,” he said, smiling fondly. “But Moira gave me them for our wedding, and, well, I thought maybe they might bring you some of the luck that we’ve had.”

“I would count myself very lucky if they did,” he said and didn’t say anything else, because he didn’t trust his voice enough to try.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“I shouldn’t have eaten that slice of cake”

“I don’t think that slice was the problem; I think it was the four you had before that slice.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t start picking on me in front of your Mom, I’m already her favourite,” David said, leaving him in his dust as he followed Patrick’s parents into their room.

They had been leaving, finally, full of food and sore from laughter, when his Mom had asked that they come to their room before they go. A tiny part of Patrick had wanted to say no, but he didn’t have it in him to refuse.

“We know you said you didn’t want anything else,” his Dad was saying when Patrick joined the three of them in the Motel room.

“You’ve already been very generous,” David said.

“Well, if you can’t spoil your kids, who can you spoil?” his Mom was gripping a small, white envelope in her hand as she spoke, and waited until the two of them were sitting together before handing it to them. David, of course, tore it open immediately.

“Wow,” he breathed when he unfolded its contents. Which, Patrick leaned in to see, was a cheque. A cheque for… a lot of money.

“We thought it could help with the wedding or the honeymoon or whatever,” his Dad said.

“We can’t take this,” David said, surprising the three of them.

“It’s too much,” Patrick agreed, trying to slide the cheque back across the table. “We can’t -”

“You can,” his Mom said sweetly, firmly. “You’re two hardworking, sweet, very deserving boys. We want you to have it.”

“We wouldn’t offer if we couldn’t afford it, so don’t even think about saying it,” his Dad said, holding up his hand before Patrick could get in first.

“I don’t know what to say,” Patrick breathed, looking through the tears in his eyes and at his parents. 

“Say thank you,” his Mom said, smiling. “And then buy the roses, or the nicer shoes, or whatever you’d like.”

“Thank you,” they said in unison, hugging the two parents tightly and feeling just completely content.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Later, even later, they were back in bed, bone-deep exhausted and just stupid happy.

“I’m so tired,” David said, voice muffled by his pillow.

“You know what’s good, though?”

“What?”

“We agreed to go on a hike with my parents at ten tomorrow morning.”

“Ugh,” he groaned. “Do you think I can get out of that if I give them their cheque back?”

“I don’t,” he grinned. “That was nice of them.”

“Very,” David said, turning his face to Patrick, and looking so pretty it actually, physically hurt him to look.

“I can’t believe I get to marry you,” he whispered, rolling until he was straddling the back of David’s thighs. As he leaned down to kiss the back of his neck, he added, “and you’re going to look so hot in that expensive suit I know you’ve already mentally spent that money on.”

“Don’t want the suit,” he said quietly, sighing and letting his eyes close when Patrick kissed down his shoulder.

“No?”

“No; I want to buy a house,” he breathed, almost asleep. “I want a house.”

“Oh, yeah, okay,” he said dumbly.

“Yeah. With a little garden, and enough room for my books, and a kitchen for you to bake cookies in,” Patrick snorted against his back, “and a skylight for when you can’t sleep, so you can look at the stars like you like. And a bar for when I can’t sleep, so I can drink like I like.”

“You know we’ll need room for Alexis and Ted’s twelve kids, right?”

“God,” he laughed. “Can we have that?”

“Yes,” he nodded, pulling David’s hair gently until he lifted his head to be kissed. “You can have anything you want.”

“What about you? What do you want?”

Patrick thought for a moment, though he didn’t really have to. He knew exactly what he wanted, knew it completely when he knew nothing else, knew it when all the details were fuzzy and uncertain, and David was the only things in brilliant, perfect light. He knew it every time he saw David across their store, knew it when he woke up in his arms, knew it when the sun shone in his face, when the cold shook his bones, knew it every day and every night, knew it above everything else.

“I have everything I want.”


End file.
